UC-NRLF 


PROCEEDING 


OF  THE 


BEING  THE 


FOiriTH  NATIONAL  CONFERENCE 


ON 


HELD  AT 

RICHMOND,  VIRGINIA 
DECEMBER  7-9.  1914 


-^T 

LO 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  ASSOCIATION 
1915 


GIFT  OF 


PROCEEDINGS 


OF  THE 


BEING  THE 


FOURTH  NATIONAL  CONFERENCE 


ON 


Bxtrattmtal 


HELD  AT 

RICHMOND,  VIRGINIA 
DECEMBER  7-9,  1914 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  ASSOCIATION 
1915 


^ 


COPIES  OF  THE  PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE 
NATIONAL  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 
ASSOCIATION  MAY  BE  OBTAINED  BY  ADDRESS- 
ING THE  SECRETARY,  MR.  W.  CARSON  RYAN, 
JR.,  BUREAU  OF  EDUCATION,  WASHINGTON, 
D.  C.  APPLICATION  FOR  MEMBERSHIP  SHOULD 
BE  MADE  TO  THE  SECRETARY  AS  FOLLOWS! 

INDIVIDUAL  MEMBERSHIP $1.00 

SUSTAINING  MEMBERSHIP....  .    5.00 


POWERS-TYSON    PRINTING    CO. 
GRAND    RAPIDS,    MICHIGAN 


Contents 


PAGE 

The  Richmond  Meeting..... 4 

Address  by  President  Frank  M.  Leavitt 5 

A.- — Practical  Phases  of  Vocational  Guidance 8 

The  Street  and  the  Start  in  Life... 8 

Dexterity  and  Skill  in  Relation  to  Vocational  Guidance 10 

Vocational  Guidance — a  Function  of  the  University 12 

B. — Vocational  Guidance  in  the  Public  School  System '. 17 

Vocational  Guidance  in  Boston 17 

Some  Suggestions  for  Presenting  a  Course  in  Vocational  Infor- 
mation to  Pupils  in  our  Smaller  Schools - — .  24 

Vocational  Guidance  and  the  Curriculum.... 29 

C. — Vocational  Guidance  and  Social  Welfare.- 36 

The  Problems  of  Vocational  Guidance  in  the  South __  36 

Part-Time  Secondary  Schooling  and  Vocational  Guidance 36 

Some  Items  to  be  considered  in  a  Vocational  Guidance  Program  49 
A  Brief  Statement  of  the  Work  of  the  Vocational  Bureau  and 

the  Joint  Committee  for  Vocational  Supervision 51 

The  Young  Men's  Mutual  Improvement  Association 56 

The  Work  of  the  Vocational  Scholarship  Committee 59 

Constitution  of  the  National  Vocational  Guidance  Association 62 

Index....  64 


361353 


National  Vocational  Guidance  Association 


SECOND  ANNUAL  MEETING 
Richmond,  Virginia,  December  7-9,  1914 

The  second  annual  meeting  of  the  National  Vocational  Guidance 
Association,  being  the  fourth  National  Conference,  was  held  at  Rich- 
mond, Virginia,  December  seventh,  eighth  and  ninth,  1914.  At  this 
meeting  a  permanent  constitution  was  adopted.  It  was  decided  to 
hold  a  Panama-Pacific  Conference  during  the  summer  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  Association.  The  following  officers  were  elected  for  the  ensu- 
ing year: 

OFFICERS 

President:  Secretary: 

PRINCIPAL  JESSE  B.  DAVIS,  W.  CARSON  RYAN,  JR., 

Vocational  Director,  Bureau  of  Education, 

Grand  Rapids,  Mich.  Washington,  D.  C. 

Vice  President:  Treasurer: 

Miss  ANNE  S.  DAVIS,  MR.  JAMES  S.  HIATT, 

Vocational  Director,  Public  Education  Association, 

Chicago,  111.  1015  Witherspoon  Bldg., 

Philadelphia,  Pa. 


EXECUTIVE  COUNCIL 

PROF.  FRANK  M.  LEAVITT,  MR.  C.  A.  PROSSER, 

The  School  of  Education,  Secretary,  National  Society  for  the 

University  of  Chicago,  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education, 

Chicago,  111.  New  York,  N.  Y. 

MR.  ARTHUR  W.  DUNN,  Mr.  FRANKLIN  B.  DYER, 

Bureau  of  Education,  Superintendent  of  Schools, 

Washington,  D.  C.  Boston,  Mass. 

MR.  MEYER  BLOOMFIELD, 
Director,  Vocation  Bureau, 
Boston,  Mass. 


PAPERS  AND  ADDRESSES 


Richmond  Convention,  1914 


ADDRESS  BY  THE  PRESIDENT 

PROFESSOR  FRANK  M.  LEAVITT 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 

Every  human  organization  is  subject  to  reformation,  in  fact  must 
be  revised  and  re-organized  from  time  to  time  to  insure  its  very  exist- 
ence. If  such  reformation  is  gradual,  and  comes  mainly  from  vital 
influences  within  the  organization,  we  call  it  evolution.  If  it  comes 
abruptly,  because  of  pressure  from  without,  we  call  it  revolution. 

The  Public  School  System  is  no  exception  to  this  rule.  If,  for 
too  long  a  period,  it  fails  to  re-adjust  itself  to  the  needs  of  the  people 
it  is  sure  to  be  acted  upon  by  influences  from  without,  and  this  action, 
if  it  assumes  sufficient  proportions,  may  constitute  a  real  demand. 

Both  industrial  education  and  vocational  guidance  have  been 
demanded  by  agencies  outside  of  the  school,  but  I  think  we  may  safely 
say  that  the  vocational  guidance  movement  today  represents  the  most 
serious  and  conscious  effort,  on  the  part  of  American  educators,  to  save 
the  public  school  system  from  needless  revolution  by  adequate  re- 
adjustment and  growth  from  within. 

In  the  past  very  largely,  and  in  the  present  frequently,  the  schools 
take  too  seriously  their  selective  function.  That  is  to  say  it  has  been 
the  business  of  the  sixth  grade  to  determine  what  children  should  have 
a  seventh  grade  education;  of  the  eighth  grade  to  determine  what 
children  should  have  a  high  school  education;  of  the  high  school  to 
determine  what  pupils  should  go  to  college;  and  of  the  college  to  certify 
those  who  ought  to.  attempt  work  in  the  professional  schools.  In  short, 
the  business  of  the  school  at  each  step  of  the  way  has  been  to  select 
those  who  are  fit  to  "go  on." 

The  schools,  until  recently,  have  failed  to  note  that  every  pupil 
is  "going  on"  to  some  end  and  that  the  education  of  each  individual 
should  be  such  as  would  function  in  his  own  life  experiences,  no  matter 
whether  his  destination  be  the  factory  or  a  profession. 

And  so  American  educators  have  come  to  see  that  whatever 
may  be  the  ultimate  solution  of  the  problems  of  industrial  education. 


6  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL 'GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION 

Yocational  guidance  is  fundamentally  a  school  function.  While  it 
must  enlist  all  possible  sympathy  and  co-operation  on  the  part  of  parents 
and  possible  employers,  the  school  must  assume  the  major  responsibility 
for  guidance.  As  Mrs.  Fernandez  has  so  well  said:  "vocational 
guidance  means  guidance  for  training,  not  guidance  for  jobs," — a  fact 
which  is  generally  overlooked  by  the  commercial  interests, — witness 
the  experience  of  the  Buffalo  Chamber  of  Commerce. 

And  so  the  National  Vocational  Guidance  Association  has  accepted 
the  hospitality  of  the  City  of  Richmond  and  is  meeting  in  connection 
with  the  National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education 
because  we  wish  to  get  all  the  information  and  inspiration  possible 
from  the  accumulated  results  of  your  survey  and  from  the  enthusiasm 
which  it  has  engendered.  We  also  wish  to  fortify  ourselves,  and  those 
who  look  to  us  for  information,  against  the  assumption  that  the  schools 
can  be  relieved  from  any  part  of  their  high  responsibility, — a  responsi- 
bility which  cannot  ignore  anything  which  is  even  remotely  related  to 
the  education  of  the  rising  generation. 

Just  a  year  ago,  at  the  request  of  the  editor  of  "The  Survey"  to 
forecast  what  the  year  1914  should  bring  forth  in  the  field  of  vocational 
education  and  vocational  guidance,  I  wrote  a  brief  article  for  that  mag- 
azine, part  of  which  was  as  follows: 

"While  the  vocational  guidance  movement  will  ultimately 
influence  educational  practice  from  the  elementary  school 
through  the  university,  the  most  important  service  which  it 
should  render  in  1914  is  to  secure  progress  toward  a  larger 
social  control  over  the  school  life  and  the  vocational  experiences 
of  all  children  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen." 

"All  the  elements  of  such  supervision  already  exist  but  are 
isolated  and  unrelated.  We  have  school  attendance  laws, 
factory  inspection,  prohibition  of  certain  forms  of  child  employ- 
ment, and  the  regulation  of  hours  and  conditions  of  labor  in 
others." 

"What  the  year  1914  ought  to  develop  is  a  consciousness, 
in  one  or  more  progressive  communities,  that  all  these  benefi- 
cent   regulations    of    child   employment  should   be   corralated 
and  administered  through  one  agency,  and  that  the  department 
of  public  instruction  is  the  logical  instrument  for  this  purpose." 
Dr.  Devine,  speaking  in  this  city  last  February,  before  the  Depart- 
ment   of    Superintendence    of    the    National    Educational    Association, 
gave  his  hearers  a  splendid  vision  of  the  duties  which  a  school  system 
should  assume.     After  declaring  that  the  persistent  problems  of  social 
economy,   are  poverty,  disease  and  crime,   and  that  the  conventional 
remedies  for  these,  namely  relief,  medicine  and  jails  do  not  cure,  he 
said  in  part: 

"The  omnipresent  local  social  economist  is  the  school. 
The  assumption  of  social  responsibility  for  poverty,  disease  and 
crime,  clearly  involves  the  transformation  of  the  school." 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  7 

"And  what  this  means  is,  first,  a  different  training  of 
teachers;  second,  a  new  curriculum  and  third,  more  vital  and 
diversified  contacts  between  the  school  and  the  adult  com- 
munity." 

"The  social  economist  holds  that  the  prevention  of  poverty, 
disease  and  crime  is  the  first,  elementary,  fundamental  obligation 
of  the  public  school  system.  This  demand  for  re-examination 
of  the  curriculum  in  the  light  of  this  primary  obligation  is  radical 
and  insistent.  It  is  not  to  be  put  off  by  any  plea  of  a  crowded 
course  of  study  or  conflicting  demands  from  other  quarters. 
It  is  not  a  class  demand,  or  a  fad  and  fancy,  or  an  external 
pressure  as  might  come  from  a  university  or  from  commerce 
and  industry.  It  is  simply  a  formulation  of  the  universal,  social 
need,  'of  a  vital  condition  of  social  health  and  progress,  nay,  in 
the  last  analysis  of  social  existence." 

In  May  the  National  Society  began  the  Richmond  survey  and  has 
recently  given  out  a  synopsis  of  its  findings.  Some  of  us  have  come 
down  to  this  meeting  hoping  that  we  may  be  convinced  that  Richmond 
has  measured  up  to  the  requirements  set  by  the  two  quotations  just 
given,  and  has  become  conscious  that  the  giving  of  industrial  education 
and  vocational  guidance  by  its  school  system  is  of  first  importance. 

The  National  Vocational  Guidance  Association  has  come  to  Rich- 
mond, hoping  to  play  its  part  in  the  progress  which  this  city  is  making 
toward  the  assumption  of  its  full  responsibility  for  organizing  and  main- 
taining what  may  well  be  called  a  glorified  public  school  system. 


A.— Practical  Phases  of  Vocational  Guidance 


THE  STREET  AND  THE  START  IN  LIFE 

PHILIP  DAVIS 
FORMERLY  SUPERVISOR  STREET  TRADES  (BOSTON  SCHOOL  COMMITTEE) 

In  this  country  there  are  about  120,000  children  and  youth  engaged 
in  street  trades.  They  enter  these  trades  haphazardly,  by  mere  acci- 
dent, often  during  their  early  years  in  school.  Habit  keeps  many  of 
them  on  the  street  long  after  they  leave  school,  indeed,  years  after  they 
have  outgrown  these  trades.  The  large  cities  are  full  of  overgrown 
newsboys,  bootblacks  and  messenger  boys. 

Many  school  children  also  enter  into  street  trades  less  known  than 
selling  papers  or  shining  shoes  and  perhaps  more  far-reaching  in  influence 
than  either.  In  Boston,  500  children  are  at  work  daily  at  the 
dumps  as  scavengers.  These  child  scavengers  are  living  a  life  entirely 
unknown  to  the  parents  and  teachers  who  are  seeking  to  make  them 
good  and  useful  citizens.  Many  school  children  are  daily  at  work  after 
school  hours  and  on  Saturdays  in  the  markets  picking  up  what  they 
can,  or  "swiping"  off  push-carts. 

The  effect  of  these  street  trades  on  the  vocational  careers  of  our 
children  is  obvious.  But  the  influence  of  the  street  on  the  start  in  life 
is  much  wider  than  that  of  the  street  trades  alone.  The  street  is  daily 
suggesting  careers,  good  and  bad,  to  hundreds  of  city  children.  Its 
influence  for  good  is  exemplified  in  some  of  our  merchant  princes  now 
carrying  on  huge  department  stores,  the  outgrowth  of  the  peddler's 
pack.  Its  influence  at  its  worst  is  exemplified  in  the  gunmen  of  the 
East  Side,  the  finished  product  of  the  street.  The  street  thus  may  lead 
to  a  right  start  or  a  wrong  start.  It  is  therefore  supremely  important 
to  know  the  street  at  its  best  and  worst. 

Two  sets  of  illustrations  will  help  us  to  understand  this  great  factor 
in  child  life.  An  East  Side  social  worker  found  that  boys  who  help 
handle  the  horses  in  connection  with  the  antiquated  horse  cars  event- 
ually become  truck  drivers.  The  opportunity  to  ride  or  drive  a  horse, 
the  birthright  of  every  country  boy,  is  so  rare  in  city  lives  that  the  boy 
who  knows  how  to  handle  one  is  at  a  premium. 

Similarly  the  numerous  early  morning  helpers  on  milk  teams  be- 
come milk  wagon  drivers  later  on.  Tenders  of  push  carts  soon  come 
to  own  their  own  stands  and  in  some  instances  their  own  stores.  These 
instances,  like  those  of  the  newsboy  banker,  are  responsibile  for  the 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  9 

general  notion  that  the  child  worker  of  today  is  the  successful  citizen 
of  tomorrow.  This  would  mean  that  the  street  influence  on  the  start 
in  life  is  always  good.  We  all  know  better. 

Not  only  do  many  street  traders  end  in  failure  but  the  street  unfits 
some  children  for  any  work  whatever.  Indoor  factory  life  becomes 
distasteful  to  one  who  has  roamed  the  streets  for  fifteen  years  and  the 
habits  of  begging  and  gambling,  "bunking-out"  and  tramping,  acquired 
by  many  are  injurious  to  any  industrial  career  whatever. 

The  influence  of  the  street  gang  on  the  start  in  life  is  especially 
subtle.  It  works  in  two  ways.  The  Ipswich  mills  in  Massachusetts 
found  great  difficulty  in  keeping  their  boys,  who  on  investigation  were 
found  to  be  completely  under  the  suasion  of  the  street  gang.  The  gang 
seeing  the  danger  of  its  breakdown  successfully  resisted  any  member's 
plan  of  going  to  work. 

On  the  other  hand  a  piano  company  in  Cambridgeport,  Massa- 
chusetts, found  that  the  gang  used  the  factory  to  perpetuate  its  own 
existence  by  delegating  one  member  at  a  time  to  work  a  few  weeks  on 
condition  that  he  contribute  to  the  maintenance  of  the  group.  These 
instances  come  from  the  employment  managers  of  these  firms. 

The  good  and  evil  of  gang  life  has  long  been  recognized  but  here 
is  need  for  new  light  on  the  gang;  its  influence  on  the  start  in  life.  Since 
the  gang  is  the  typical  product  of  the  street  we  must  go  back  to  the 
street  itself  for  enlightenment.  What  we  need  therefore  is  a  survey 
of  street  life.  This  is  an  unexplored  field. 

The  Education  Acts  of  England  and  Germany  call  for  just  such 
information.  This  country  has  made  frequent  studies  of  country  life, 
home  life  and  school  life.  I  submit  that  it  is  equally  urgent  to  make  a 
similar  study  of  street  life  and  influences.  So  strong  are  these  influen- 
ences  that  the  leading  cities  have  already  appointed  police-women  to 
control  those  affecting  recreation.  At  least  two  cities  have  supervisors 
of  street  trades  to  control  those  affecting  work. 

These  new  types  of  service  will  undoubtedly  be  extended  every- 
where. Like  the  continuation  schools,  playgrounds  and  social  centers, 
street  supervision  will  materially  aid  in  taking  children  off  the  street. 
It  stands  to  reason  that  every  increase  of  work  and  play  opportunities 
of  this  kind  decreases  the  influence  of  the  street. 

But  a  complete  survey  of  the  influence  of  the  street  on  the  start 
in  life  would  undoubtedly  disclose  that  this  country  needs  in  addition 
to  these  beneficent  child-saving  agencies,  a  national  system  of  Juvenile 
Labor  Exchanges.  The  facts  gathered  by  a  street  survey  such  as  is 
advocated  here  would,  in  the  hands  of  a  Juvenile  Labor  Exchange  become 
the  basis  for  follow-up  work  of  a  unique  character  and  of  supreme  social 
value.  We  would  thus  be  in  a  position  to  give  not  only  street  infor- 
mation but  street  guidance  to  children  and  parents  alike.  And  above 
all  give  the  right  kind  of  work  as  a  sure  substitute  for  street  loafing. 


10  NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

DEXTERITY  AND  SKILL  IN  RELATION  TO  VOCATIONAL 

GUIDANCE 

Miss  ANNA  C.  HEDGES 
NEW  YORK  STATE  EDUCATION    DEPARTMENT,  ALBANY,  NEW  YORK 

A  consideration  of  dexterity  and  skill  in  relation  to  vocational 
guidance  is  suggestive  and  helpful  to  those  whose  interest  lies  with  the 
young. 

Dexterity  may  be  regarded  as  mental  and  manual. 

Mental  dexterity  is  readiness  in  the  ordering  of  thought  and  moods. 

Manual  dexterity  is  expertness  in  the  manipulation  of  tools  and 
materials. 

Well  balanced  people  are  both  mentally  and  manually  dexterous. 

Skill  is  dexterity  specially  applied  with  speed  and  accuracy. 

Machine  operating  in  factories  is  a  form  of  manual  dexterity  which 
requires  operative  skill.  This  skill  is  gained  quickly  in  the  factory, 
especially  if  the  applicant  is  young  and  has  acquired  diversified  manual 
dexterity  through  practice  in  manipulation  of  material  and  tools  of 
many  kinds. 

Diversified  dexterity,  or  practice  with  many  materials  and  tools 
affects  extent  and  degree  of  skill  attainable,  through  experience  with 
a  wide  range  of  common  elements  in  the  manipulation  of  materials  and 
tools.  But  skill  in  any  one  operation  may  exist  without  diversified 
dexterity.  A  person  of  simple  mentality  and  slight  dexterity  may  by 
application  and  persistence  become  skillful  in  doing  a  simple  operation, 
but  lacks  resources  when  deprived  of  this  particular  work,  and  is  often 
unable  to  adapt  to  other  lines.  This  is  a  frequent  cause  of  unemploy- 
ment. 

We  speak  loosely  and  inaccurately  of  skilled  and  unskilled  trades, 
when,  in  point  of  fact,  every  industrial  operation  requires  skill.  Special- 
ization in  work  processes  has  materially  intensified  work  requirements. 
It  is  because  of  lack  of  diversified  dexterity,  inability  to  adapt  readily 
and  speedily,  and  because  employers  have  not  the  educator's  spirit 
when  they  regard  the  human  element  secondary  to  material  production, 
that  we  have,  if  not  the  blind  alley  job,  at  least  the  blind  alley  boy  or 
girl. 

One's  power  of  accomplishment  is  limited  by  the  extent  and  degree 
of  his  dexterity.  In  the  person  who  is  not  mentally  dexterous,  thought 
is  confused  and  tends  to  indirection  and  vagueness.  Those  who  lack 
manual  dexterity  either  fail  to  get  things  done,  do  them  poorly,  or  do 
them  awkwardly.  Dexterity  increases  accomplishment,  broadens  mental 
comprehension,  fosters  rational  thought,  and  inhibits  intellectual  vag- 
aries. Hence  a  right  understanding  of  what  it  means  to  be  dexterous 
handed  is  vitally  important  in  Vocational  Guidance.  The  Vocational 
adviser  should  be  able  to  diagnose  clearly  the  degree  and  type  of  dex- 
terity possessed  by  the  worker  and  the  requirements  of  the  work  in 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  11 

relation  to  dexterity.  Without  some  such  check-rein,  the  momentum 
of  some  educational  theories  to  provide  the  student  with  a  means  of 
existence  will  favor  the  acquisition  and  skill  at  the  expense  of  a  broader 
technique  and  larger  intelligence  which  make  for  adaptability. 

PRINCIPLES  UNDERLYING  GUIDANCE. 

In  this  discussion  a  few  principles  underlying  guidance  will  be 
considered,  basic  to  which  is  the  thought  that  it  is  as  futile  for  a  man 
to  attempt  to  guide  girls  into  women's  work  as  for  a  woman  to  attempt 
to  guide  boys  into  men's  work.  Guidance  presumes: 

FIRST.  Ability  to  analyze  correctly  workers  and  work;  sex-differ- 
ence obstructs  sex-understanding. 

SECOND.     That  guidance  may   be  direct  or  indirect. 

Direct  guidance  is  advice  as  to  placement.  It  may  meet  the 
immediate  need  for  work,  but  may  also  involve  the  danger  of  inappreci- 
ation  of  latent  human  power,  for  human  aptitudes  often  remain 
unrevealed.  Indirect  guidance  deals  with  human  handicaps  which  are 
discoverable,  and  with  work  limitations.  It  is  constructive  as  is  pre- 
ventive medicine,  and  is  more  safe  and  fruitful  than  direct  guidance, 
which  treats  the  present  need,  as  does  remedial  medicine,  but  may 
delay  and  harm  the  final  or  best  results. 

Indirect  guidance  is  continuous  guidance  throughout  youth.  It 
implies  the  elimination  from  school  practice  of  waste  of  time  and  effort 
in  merely  formed  book-work;  the  incorporation  of  repeated  and  varied 
human  experience  and  human  relationship  in  work  and  play;  the  ad- 
dition of  hand  and  mechanical  work  which  profitably  concerns  persons, 
things,  situations. 

THIRD.  That  self  guidance  is  a  natural  result  of  diversified  dex- 
terity. 

School  methods  urgently  need  revision  along  lines  of  interest, 
application,  industry,  health,  and  dexterity.  Frivolity  on  the  part  of 
applicants  for  work,  lack  of  interest  in  work,  physical  disability,  lack 
of  energy,  indifference  to  work,  or  work  unsuited  to  individual  needs, 
are  all  handicaps  to  good  wage  earning. 

Accuracy  is  another  vital  qualification  toward  which  every  school 
day  should  contribute  its  training.  Unsuspected  eye  defects  often 
cause  poor  work.  These  defects  should  have  been  discovered  in  school 
and  either  remedied  or  made  the  condition  or  rejection  for  work  re- 
quiring keen  vision. 

Teachers  who  know  the  requirements  of  many  industrial  processes 
will  be  able  to  point  out  the  individual  handicap  in  each  employment. 
Thus  by  elimination  the  best  possible  avenues  for  progressive  wage- 
earning  will  be  revealed,  leaving  to  the  choice  of  the  individual  placing 
of  himself  in  the  lines  of  work  best  adapted  to  him.  What  is  needed 
is  vocational  guidance  to  prevent  getting  into  the  wrong  channel,  by 


12  NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION 

helping  the  individual  to  avoid  mistakes.  The  responsibility  of  work 
selection,  then,  rests  properly  on  the  worker,  who  himself  makes  the 
choice. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE— A  FUNCTION  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY 

PROFESSOR  J.  D.  ELLIFF 
UNIVERSITY  OF  MISSOURI 

The  universities  have  always  stood  for  the  highest  standard  of 
scholarship  and  the  most  thorough  training  for  the  professions.  They 
are  today  the  only  institutions  that  make  any  conscious  attempt  to 
select  and  train  men  and  women  for  the  highest  type  of  leadership  and 
professional  service.  The  demand  for  highly  trained  men  and  women, 
(and  by  higher  training  is  meant  those  whose  preparation  for  a  pro- 
fession is  roughly  measured  by  the  completion  of  a  six  years  university 
course)  is  greater  now  than  it  has  ever  been.  To  supply  this  demand  is 
the  aim  and  function  of  the  university — is  the  real  reason  for  its  exist- 
ence. 

With  the  marvelous  growth  of  the  public  high  schools  and  the 
accompanying  growth  of  the  universities  has  come  many  new  adminis- 
trative problems.  Instead  of  training  a  few  men  for  the  professions  of 
law  and  medicine,  we  are  now  training  many  men  and  women  for  a 
multitude  of  professions.  THE  UNIVERSITIES  ARE  TRAINING  AN  IN- 
CREASING NUMBER  OF  HIGH  SCHOOL  GRADUATES  FOR  AN  EVER  INCREASING 

NUMBER  OF  PROFESSIONS.  We  now  have  graduate  schools,  schools  of 
law,  medicine,  journalism,  theology,  engineering,  forrestry,  agriculture. 
In  each  of  these  there  is  opportunity  for  specialization  so  that  instead  of 
two  or  three  so-called  learned  professions  we  now  have  two  or  three 
score.  The  engineer  who  has  spent  six  years  in  the  school  of  engineer- 
ing is  just  as  truly  a  professional  man  as  is  his  classmate  who  has  spent 
the  same  time  in  a  law  school. 

So  long  as  the  professional  training  was  comparatively  narrow 
and  confined  to  the  selected  few  the  problem  was  simple.  The  university 
was  not  particularly  concerned  about  the  selection  of  its  students  and 
consequently  gave  the  maximum  amount  of  time  and  effort  to  the  train- 
ing of  such  students  as  entered  its  professional  schools.  We  believe  that 
the  time  has  now  come  when  more  attention  should  be  given  to  the 
selection  of  students  for  the  professions.  In  other  words,  we  believe 
that  a  little  vocational  guidance  is  needed  in  the  university. 

The  average  high-school  graduate  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  selected 
individual.  This,  however,  does  not  mean  that  he  can  succeed  in  any 
profession  taught  in  the  university.  There  are  marked  differences 
in  individuals,  differences  due  to  inheritance  ^nd  environment  and  these 
should  be  taken  into  account  in  planning  the  life  work  of  the  college 
student.  A  youth  might,  with  university  training,  succeed  in  any  one 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  13 

of  several  professions  but  he  would  not  succeed  equally  well  in  all 
and  he  might  be  doomed  by  inheritance  in  some  one.  To  verify  this 
statement  you  only  need  to  look  about  you  until  you  find  a  college 
trained  man  who  is  unhappy  or  inefficient  in  his  work. 

Again,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  the  college  freshman  is  younger 
now  than  he  was  twenty  or  even  ten  years  ago  and  is  less  qualified  to 
make  a  wise  choice  of  a  profession.  The  raw  material  of  which  college 
students  are  made,  the  high  school  graduate,  is  quite  a  different  product 
from  that  turned  out  by  the  private  preparatory  school  twenty-five 
years  ago.  Present  day  college  freshmen,  like  Gaul  may  be  divided 
into  three  parts. 

FIRST.  Those  who  have  made  a  good  record  in  the  high  school, 
have  some  definite  purpose,  are  ambitious  and  ready  to  profit  by  the 
advanced  instruction  offered.  About  all  that  this  class  needs  is  a  chance. 

SECOND.  Those  who  go  to  college  because  their  friends  go  or 
because  they  have  nothing  better  to  do  or,  perhaps,  because  it  is  the 
fashionable  thing.  These  need  guidance. 

THIRD.  A  class  aptly  classified  by  Dean  Reed  of  the  University 
of  Michigan  as  the  intellectual  hoboes.  They  are  the  fellows  who  are 
strong  for  the  larger  life — that  is  for  fraternities,  theatres,  college  politics, 
hazing,  class  rushes,  dances  and  other  time  wasting  devices.  This 
class  needs  both  discipline  and  guidance.  These  are  the  survival  of 
the  high  school's  "unfittest."  It  is  this  class  that  gives  the  most  of 
the  college  failures.  When  we  consider  the  size  of  this  class,  we  should 
not  be  surprised  that  some  few  of  the  world's  misfits  and  failures  are 
college  graduates. 

We  know  that  most  failures  are  due  to  one  or  two  causes. 

FIRST.  Failure  to  choose  the  right  vocation.  By  the  right  vo- 
cation is  meant  one  in  harmony  with  one's  dominant  interests,  capacities 
and  future  prospects.  This  failure  takes  two  forms; 

(a)  A  choice  of  the  wrong  vocation. 

(b)  The  choice  of  none. 

SECOND.  Failure  to  make  adequate  preparation  for  any  vocation. 
The  youth  who  makes  a  wise  choice  of  a  vocation  and  makes  adequate 
preparation  for  it  can  not  fail.  Too  many  students  get  through  high 
school  and  college  with  no  adequate  knowledge  of  self,  no  definite  aim 
or  purpose,  with-  no  real  grasp  of  what  Doctor  Elliott  has  so  aptly  called 
the  "life  career  motive."  To  say  that  this  is  the  fault  of  the  high  school 
does  not  change  the  situation  in  the  least  for  we  know  that  few  high 
schools  make  any  attempt  at  vocational  guidance.  Until  they  do  the 
universities  must,  in  so  far  as  its  own  students  are  concerned,  make 
good  the  deficiency. 

No  university  can  afford  to  waste  its  time  and  energy  in  trying  to 
teach  a  profession  to  a  man  who  has  no  aptitude  for  and  no  interest 


14  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

in  it.  The  only  possible  way  to  prevent  this  waste  is  to  give  more 
attention  to  the  selection  of  the  individual  students  who  seek  admission 
to  the  professional  schools. 

Guidance  is  implied  in  every  valid  statement  of  the  aim  of  secondary 
education.  By  secondary  education  I  mean  the  four  year  high  school 
and  two  years  in  the  college  of  Arts  and  Science,  the  full  requirement 
for  admission  to  the  professional  schools.  These  six  years,  correspond- 
ing as  they  usually  do  to  the  period  of  adolescence, are  the  real  spring- 
time of  life  and  are  all  for  the  purpose  of  education  worth  more  than  the 
fourteen  preceding  or  the  fifty  years  that  may  follow. 

I  have  neither  time  nor  inclination  to  go  into  a  discussion  of  edu- 
cational aims.  I  must,  however,  in  order  to  give  you  my  point  of  view, 
say  a  word  about  the  aim  of  adolescent  education.  During  this  period 
the  school  should  do  three  things  for  its  students: 

FIRST.  It  should  extend  the  general  or  cultured  education  of  its 
students.  That  the  elementary  school  does  not  offer  sufficient  training 
for  any  type  of  efficient  service  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  every  state 
in  the  union  has  made  definite  provision  for  free  high  schools. 

SECOND.  It  should  lead  the  student  to  discover  himself,  to  learn 
what  his  own  dominant  interests  are. 

THIRD.  Having  realized  these  aims  the  school  should  give  him 
the  best  training  possible  to  fit  him  for  his  chosen  profession. 

So  fundamentally  important  are  these  aims  that  they  should  be 
the  guiding  principles  in  determining  all  matters  of  organization  and 
administration. 

That  it  is  possible  for  the  school  to  do  this  may  be  taken  for  granted. 
Our  problem  therefore  is: 

FIRST.  To  encourage  and  assist  the  student  to  make  a  good  self- 
analysis,  to  know  himself,  to  know  his  own  dominant  interests,  capaci- 
ties and  limitations. 

SECOND.  To  give  him  a  vocational  vision.  To  give  him  some 
knowledge  of  the  world's  work  and  its  opportunities  for  him  and  in  the 
light  of  this  knowledge  lead  him  to  face  squarely  the  problem  of  his 
life's  work. 

THIRD.     To  aid  and  guide  him  in  making  a  choice. 

FOURTH.  To  give  him  the  best  possible  opportunity  to  make 
thorough  professional  training. 

FIFTH.     To  find  a  position  for  him  when  he  has  completed  the  course. 

WAYS  AND  MEANS 

Time  will  not  admit  of  any  detailed  discussion  of  ways  and  means. 
All  the  means  available  to  any  school  or  any  bureau  are  available  in 
the  university  and  in  addition  other  means  not  found  in  any  other  insti- 
tution. 

The  method  will  be  essentially  the  same  as  used  in  our  better  high 
schools. 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  15 

If  guidance  is  possible  in  any  educational  institution,  it  is  in  the 
university.  The  students  are  at  an  &ge  when  their  characteristic  traits 
are  easily  observable  and  have  reached  the  point  where  the  import- 
ance of  making  a  choice  should  be  appreciated.  Let  us  note  very  briefly 
some  of  the  means  available. 

FIRST.  To  AID  STUDENTS  IN  MAKING  A  CAREFUL  SELF-ANALYSIS,  WE 
CAN  HAVE: 

(a)  The   contribution   of  his    parents.     This    may   be    easily   ob- 
tained by  carefully  planned  correspondence.     Most  parents  are  vitally 
interested  in  this  phase  of  their  children's  education  as  is  shown  by  the 
many  requests  for  advice  concerning  what  school  to  enter,  what  courses 
to  take,  "what  shall  I  do  with  my  boy?" 

(b)  We  can  secure  the  student's  own  contribution.     We  should 
do  this  through  a  carefully  prepared  list  of  questions,   together  with 
personal  interviews  when  necessary. 

(c)  We  can  have  access  to  the  student's  record  in  the  high  school 
together  with  the  judgment  of  his  teachers. 

(d)  The  student's  record  in  the  University.     This  would  include 
not  only  his  grade  but  his  deportment  together  with  the  judgment  of 
his  dean  and  teachers,  if  thought  necessary.     Practically  all  the  great 
universities  now  require   the  completion   of  a  four  years   high   school 
course  and  two  years'  work  in  the  College  of  Arts  and  Science  for  entrance 
to  the  professional  schools.     This  gives  us  two  full  years  for  the  work. 

(e)  In  many  cases  we  might  expect  a  contribution  from  the  De- 
partment of  Psychology.     We  have  in  all  the  great  universities,  pro- 
fessors of  experimental  and  educational  psychology.     That  these  men 
can  actually  measure  both  general  and  special  mental  traits  has  been 
conclusively  proven  by  the  work  of  Thorndyke,  Pyle,  Whipple  and  a 
score  of  others.     Likewise,  we  might  expect  valuable  contribution  from 
the  School  of  Medicine. 

SECOND.     To  GIVE  VOCATIONAL  VISION  THROUGH: 

(a)  Personal  conference. 

(b)  Lectures  by  men  who  are  authorities  in  the  professions.    These 
lectures  should  follow  the  commonly  accepted  plan. 

The  profession;  nature,  conditions  and  future. 
Compensation    and    opportunities. 

Qualifications,  personal  and  professional,  time  required. 
Opportunities  for  advancement  and  social  service. 

(c)  SELECT  READINGS.     There  are  a  number  of  books    that  will 
be   helpful.     Every    university  library    contains  books   that   will   con- 
tribute to  our  purpose.     It  would  require  but  little  time  to  select  and 
classify  them.     There  is  a  possibility  of  correlating  much  of  this  read- 
ing with  the  regular  class  work  in  some  courses. 

(d)  Observation. 


16  NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION 

THIRD.     To  AID  STUDENTS  IN  MAKING  A  CHOICE  OF  PROFESSION: 

On  the  basis  of  the  information  gained  by  following  some  such  plan 
as  outlined  above,  the  vocational  counselor  should  be  able  if  necessary 
to  at  least  prevent  the  selection  of  the  wrong  profession.  As  above 
stated  in  many  cases  but  little  work  will  be  necessary  as  we  shall  find 
that  the  first  class  of  students  mentioned  have  already  made  a  good 
choice  and  have  well  formulated  plans  for  the  realization  of  their  aims. 

FOURTH.     PLACEMENT: 

We  should  do  for  the  graduates  of  each  of  our  professional  schools 
precisely  what  most  universities  are  doing  for  the  graduates  of  the 
school  of  education. 

How  To  MAKE  A  BEGINNING 

FIRST.  Send  a  concise  statement  of  the  purpose  and  plan  of  the 
work  to  the  principals  of  each  accredited  school.  This  should  be  sent 
by  the  President  of  the  University  with  the  original  endorsement  of  the 
Curators.  This  would  give  the  movement  standing  and  would  command 
respect  from  the  first. 

SECOND.  As  the  entrance  certificates  come  in  during  the  summer, 
we  should  secure  the  names  and  addresses  of  the  new  students.  Send  to 
each  a  carefully  prepared  circular.  I  think  many  parents  and  students 
would  be  interested  in  the  matter  from  the  first  and  that  we  should 
have  a  sufficient  number  of  volunteers  to  make  a  good  beginning  the 
first  year. 

THIRD.  Prepare  all  necessary  records  and  blank  forms  in  advance 
of  the  opening  of  school. 

FOURTH.  Meet  all  students  interested  as  soon  as  possible  after 
enrollment  and  make  a  beginning  by  getting  a  carefully  written  state- 
ment from  each  student. 

FIFTH.  Plan  for  individual  conferences  as  may  be  necessary  from 
time  to  time. 

In  conclusion,  it  seems  that  the  demand  for  the  kind  of  guidance 
under  consideration  is  definite,  immediate  and  of  fundamental  import- 
ance, and  that  the  facilities  for  the  work  are  ample  and  at  hand.  Why 
not  help  those  who  need  help?  Why  continue  to  waste  time  and  money 
on  the  intellectual  hobo  and  born  misfit,  who  are  even  after  graduation 
a  reproach  to  alma  mater? 


B. — Vocational  Guidance  in  the  Public 
School  System 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  BOSTON 

FRANK  V.  THOMPSON 
ASSISTANT  SUPERINTENDENT  OF  SCHOOLS,  BOSTON,  MASS. 

We  are  just  beginning  to  realize  in  Boston  that  vocational  guid- 
ance is  not  a  new  principle  in  education.  The  name,  to  be  sure,  still 
creates  the  spell  and  mystery  of  something  novel,  but  like  Jourdain, 
in  Bourgeois  Sentilhomme,  it  is  our  comfort  to  think  that  we  have  been 
speaking  prose  all  our  lives.  No  argument  can  arise  about  the  place 
of  vocational  guidance  in  the  schools  when  once  the  name  is  properly 
associated  with  the  underlying  educational  principle. 

The  seeds  of  vocational  guidance  have  long  been  existent  in  the 
schools,  but  they  have  not  developed  in  definite  force  until  recently, 
and  indeed  the  period  of  florescence  is  still  some  time  away.  The  ap- 
plications of  vocational  guidance  in  the  past  have  reflected  the  peda- 
gogical assumptions  then  obtaining.  An  examination  of  the  reports 
of  Boston  High  Schools  in  the  fifties  reveals  their  position  then,  which 
was  in  effect,  that  the  function  of  the  schools  was  to  prepare  young 
people  for  the  practical  activities  of  life  and  to  guide  students  definitely 
into  them.  There  was  considerable  difference  of  opinion  then,  as  now, 
as  to  the  best  methods  of  attaining  this  generally  acknowledged  aim. 
Sound  arguments  for  vocational  education  as  well  as  vocational  guid- 
ance were  not  lacking  at  this  period.  These  early  ideas  were  beaten 
by  the  psychological  and  pedagogical  assumptions  of  the  schools  pre- 
vailing at  that  time.  The  dogma  of  formal  discipline  had  not  then 
been  challenged.  These  controlling  school  policies  proceeded  upon  the 
assumption  that  the  classics  and  pure  mathematics  possessed  as  school 
subjects  the  best  disciplinary  value  in  training  the  mind.  To  be  a  suc- 
cessful and  useful  citizen  in  the  community,  one  needed  to  possess  a 
well  trained  mind;  ergo,  restrict  school  training  to  the  pursuit  of  those 
school  subjects  which  experience  showed  possessed  the  highest  disciplinary 
values.  The  aim,  however,  of  the  educators  of  this  period,  was  as 
definite  as  the  aim  of  educators  of  our  own  age,  and  their  aim  was,  like 
ours,  social  efficiency. 

Our  age  has  seen  not  a  change  of  aim,  but  a  change  of  method. 
Modern  psychologists  have  challenged  the  former  assumptions  of  the 


18  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION 

formal  dogmatists,  and  while  these  assumptions  may  not  have  been 
displaced,  they  have  been  considerably  modified.  We  may  admit  that 
what  is  called  liberal  education  may  be  well  attained  today  by  a  progress 
of  studies  which  contains  a  large  element  of  ancient  classics  and  pure 
mathematics;  we  may  doubt,  however,  that  such  a  method  is  the  only 
one  by  which  liberal  education  may  be  attained.  We  quite  generally 
agree,  today,  that  specific  education  for  vocations  of  a  wide  range  is 
psychologically  and  socially  defensible  and  desirable.  Social  forces, 
democratic  evolution  and  psychological  theory  have  united  to  bring 
about  the  present  expansion  of  the  general  function  of  the  school.  Vo- 
cational guidance  is  becoming  today  a  specific  entity  recently  isolated 
from  the  largely  unformed  and  uninterpreted  mass  of  school  ideals  and 
purposes  of  the  past.  According  to  the  present  theory  of  specific  values 
the  principle  of  vocational  guidance  must  be  applied  in  a  direct  and 
concrete  way  if  real  and  tangible  results  are  to  be  expected. 

There  is  much  in  our  present  industrial,  social  and  democratic 
environment  which  emphasizes  this  function  of  guidance  in  the  schools. 
In  our  present  social  scheme  among  other  factors,  it  is  the  danger 
of  the  omission  of  the  principle  which  has  given  it  no  little  importance, 
for  in  our  ills  today  we  are  impressed  with  the  necessity  of  prevention 
of  ailment  rather  than  the  curative  treatment  of  it.  Specifically  illus- 
trated, we  no  longer  wait  until  a  boy  has  been  committed  to  a  penal 
institution  before  he  is  taught  a  trade,  but  we  teach  him  a  trade  among 
other  reasons,  that  he  may  avoid  such  a  commitment. 

Again,  there  is  the  influence  of  the  application  of  scientific  principles 
to  human  factors  as  well  as  to  material  processes.  The  choosing  of  a 
vocation  by  the  "trial  and  error"  method  seems  to  be  as  unprofitable 
here  as  when  attempted  elsewhere.  There  is  too  much  staked  on  one 
chance,  and  so  few  chances  to  try  again.  The  chances  are  always 
against  the  boy,  and  success  is  luck  rather  than  merit.  But  let  us 
beware  in  thinking  that  we  have  gone  very  far  beyond  the  recognition 
that  the  method  of  trial  and  error  is  a  poor  one.  What  we  shall  sub- 
stitute is  as  yet  vague  and  uncertain.  We  may,  however,  take  courage 
in  the  thought  that  what  we  are  seeking  to  abandon  has  no  worse  alter- 
native. We  can  hardly  lose  anything  and  we  may  probably  gain  much. 

Already  we  are  hearing  less  of  the  trite  metaphor  about  square 
pegs  and  round  holes.  Mr.  Leonard  B.  Ayers,  at  the  convention  a 
year  ago  made  this  sage  reflection  anent  the  phrase: 

"We  must  remember  that  we  are  using  a  false  analogy 
when  we  refer  to  fitting  square  pegs  into  round  holes  in  talking 
of  vocational  misfits;  for  people  and  positions  are  both  plastic, 
not  rigid,  and  much  mutual  change  of  form  often  takes  place 
without  injury  to  either  person  or  position." 

Personally,  I  have  often  felt  the  need  of  emphasizing  the  proper 
mental  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  youth  towards  his  prospective  job. 
Grit  and  courage,  I  believe,  have  more  to  do  with  successful  adjust- 
ment to  the  job  than  special  aptitude.  It  must  be  remembered  that 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  19 

special  aptitude  towards  any  work  is  frequently  accompanied  by  pain- 
,  fully  evident  special  inaptitude.  The  attitude  toward  the  job  is  always 
as  important  as  aptitude  for  the  job.  The  bravest  soldiers  know  what 
fear  is;  the  qualities  of  the  coward  and  the  hero  are  in  all  of  us.  A 
psychological  eliminative  test  for  soldiers,  based  upon  the  hypothesis 
that  a  fighter  should  be  fearless,  might  well  discard  among  prospective 
recruits,  many  a  potential  hero.  The  biographies  of  successful  men 
contain  more  often  than  not  instances  of  inaptitudes.  Moral  attitude 
has  scored  to  count  more  than  fortunate  mental  and  physical  gifts. 
What  vocational  counselor  would  have  advised  the  youthful  Domes- 
thenes  to  study  oratory? 

Not  long  ago,  I  went  through  one  of  our  large  department  stores 
and  was  introduced  to  a  number  of  heads  of  departments.  Upon  invi- 
tation these  gentlemen  discussed  with  us  their  vocational  histories. 
Quite  significantly  it  appeared  that  most  of  these  men  who  had  per- 
sisted and  risen  in  the  competition  of  hundreds,  mentioned  the  hard 
struggle  which  had  tested  their  moral  qualities  more  than  their  mental 
gifts.  Genius,  we  are  told,  is  nothing  but  the  capacity  for  hard  work; 
granting  this,  may  it  not  be  true  that  from  attitude  comes  in  consider- 
able measure  aptitude? 

Vocations  are  less  plastic  than  the  individuals  who  pursue  them. 
Individuality  in  the  job  was  the  mark  of  the  handicraft  stage;  auto- 
matic machinery,  measured  time  reactions  and  standard  products  make 
the  job  comparatively  inflexible.  The  process  of  adaptation  is  in  the 
worker,  rather  than  in  the  work.  Competent  vocational  guidance  must 
induct  young  workers  into  this  real  world  as  it  is  with  all  its  uncom- 
promising facts.  We  must  not  allow  our  boys  and  girls  to  believe  that 
there  is  any  royal  road  to  vocational  success  any  more  than  to  learning. 
Some  of  our  present  school  influences  are  at  wide  variance  with  the 
main  tendencies  in  our  industrial  society.  The  unrestricted  elective 
system  in  high  schools  emphasizes  aptitude  and  individuality  out  of 
proportion  to  our  industrial  structure,  wherein  co-operation,  social 
subordination  and  standardized  tasks  are  basic  principles. 

Hence,  I  believe,  that  we  should  not  spread  out  before  our  pupils 
as  a  tempting  menu  the  whole  array  of  possible  vocations,  urging  choice 
largely  upon  likes  and  dislikes,  but  rather  the  child  should  be  guided 
to  assume  a  vocation  by  reason  of  the  inherent  possibilities  of  the  job 
and  by  his  power  to  meet  its  demands  and  exigencies. 

The  few  scientific  tests  for  vocational  aptitudes  that  we  now  possess 
give  us  more  of  concern  than  of  promise.  The  vocational  counselor 
wishes  to  know  what  a  boy  can  do,  more  than  what  he  cannot  do.  Our 
psychological  tests  are  aptly  called  eliminative  tests.  They  are  more 
negative  than  positive;  they  eliminate  but  do  not  evaluate.  The 
psychologist  and  the  vocational  counselor  view  the  problem  from  differ- 
ent angles;  the  former  begins  with  the  job,  while  the  latter  necessarily 
begins  with  the  boy.  For  the  present,  at  least,  the  vocational  counselor 
will  obtain  greatest  advantage  from  the  study  of  the  general  emplov- 


20  NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION 

ment  situation  of  his  community,  such  matters  as  the  average  wages 
paid  in  the  local  trades,  business  houses  and  industries,  together  with 
the  physical  and  moral  conditions  of  the  various  kinds  of  occupations. 
Common  sense,  broad  sympathies,  and  knowledge  of  adolescent  tend- 
encies will  prove  of  more  worth  to  him  than  acquaintance  with  intricate 
psychological  procedure.  The  practical  methods  to  be  at  once  adopted 
by  vocational  counselors  are  those  which  are  obvious  rather  than  obscuie. 
The  school  records  of  pupils  if  properly  kept  and  reasonably  compre- 
hensive furnish  enough  presumptive  evidence  upon  which  effective 
guidance  can  be  tentatively  based.  Joint  conference  with  the  youth 
and  his  parents  will  give  the  counselor  enough  additional  information 
upon  which  to  give  competent  advice,  for  we  must  remember  that  guid- 
ance is  a  different  function  from  placement.  It  is  more  important  to 
estimate  whether  the  job  presents  an  opportunity  and  if  the  boy  can 
fit  into  the  position,  rather  than  if  the  job  fits  the  boy.  In  the  light  of 
present  evidence,  it  is  better  that  the  boy  should  choose  the  job,  than 
that  the  job  should  choose  the  boy. 

In  Boston  concrete  and  definite  plans  for  organized  work  in 
vocational  guidance  are  gradually  taking  shape.  Faster  progress  is 
prevented  chiefly  by  a  lack  of  funds.  To  use  a  picture  familiar  to  school 
officials,  we  have  a  splendid  blue-print  of  the  intended  structure  but 
the  actual  construction  is  now  awaiting  an  appropriation.  Most  of 
our  work  at  present  is  on  a  voluntary  basis  and  while  well  intentioned 
and  often  effective,  still  lacks  the  force  and  achievement  which  is  the 
result  of  expert  and  compensated  service.  Our  present  organization 
for  carrying  on  vocational  guidance  is  as  follows:  Each  elementary 
school  has  two  teachers  assigned  to  act  as  official  vocational  coun- 
selors; one  of  the  teachers  deals  with  the  pupils  leaving  to  go  to  work, 
and  the  other  advises  pupils  and  parents  regarding  profitable  choice  of 
high  school  courses.  Each  high  school  has  one  teacher  and  sometimes 
more  assigned  as  counselors,  but  here  counseling  is  limited  chieflly  to 
pupils  leaving  school  to  go  to  work. 

Several  special  schools,  such  as  the  Trade  School  for  Girls,  and  the 
Boston  Industrial  School  for  Boys,  have  provision  in  their  organization 
for  the  appointment  of  special  teachers  known  as  vocational  assistants, 
who  have  definite  assignment  of  duties  covering  guidance,  placement 
and  follow-up  work.  In  the  Trade  School  for  Girls,  vocational  assist- 
ants have  been  at  work  for  several  years  past  and  what  they  have  been 
able  to  achieve  furnishes  encouragement  as  to  what  may  be  expected 
as  the  result  of  the  extension  of  the  kind  of  service  they  are  giving. 
Very  recently  the  High  School  of  Commerce  has  had  incorporated 
into  its  organization  a  department  head  whose  chief  function  is  guid- 
ance, placement,  and  follow-up  work.  A  special  instructor  is  assigned 
to  similar  duties  in  the  High  School  of  Practical  Arts.  A  general  director 
for  vocational  guidance  has  only  this  year  been  appointed,  but  he  is 
primarily  an  officer  in  the  Continuation  School  organization,  and,  con- 
sequently, can  devote  the  lesser  part  of  his  time  to  the  specific  problem 
of  vocational  guidance. 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  21 

Some  description  of  the  relation  of  vocational  guidance  to  continu- 
ation schools  may  profitably  be  given  at  this  point.  When  boys  and 
girls  under  sixteen  years  of  age  leave  school  to  go  to  work,  they  must 
secure  the  necessary  working  certificate.  The  process  of  securing  the 
certificate  involves  an  interview  with  the  director  of  vocational  guid- 
ance. From  the  school  comes  a  somewhat  detailed  statement  covering 
not  only  what  is  conventionally  known  as  the  school  record,  but,  in 
addition,  a  detailed  account  of  personal  qualities,  evident  aptitudes,  or 
shortcomings,  and  home  conditions.  Personal  conference  enlightened 
by  school  information  enables  the  director  to  give  supplementary  advice 
regarding  the  prospective  job  and  to  assign  with  some  basis  of  pre- 
sumptive evidence  the  proper  course  to  pursue  in  the  compulsory  con- 
tinuation school.  Guidance  and  follow-up  work  are  essential  features 
of  the  continuation  school  course,  and  the  teachers  of  the  school  are 
given  definite  time  in  their  programs  to  attend  to  those  functions. 

The  Placement  Bureau  of  Boston  comes  indirectly  into  the  problem 
of  vocational  guidance.  This  institution  is  not  an  official  organization 
of  the  public  schools.  It  is  conducted  chiefly  by  private  enterprise 
although  receiving  a  small  subvention  in  the  way  of  rental  from  public 
school  funds.  The  School  Committee  of  Boston  has  encouraged  co- 
operation with  this  institution  on  the  part  of  the  schools.  Copies  of 
the  vocational  information  cards  mentioned  above,  are  given  to  the 
Placement  Bureau,  which  is  often  instrumental  in  finding  suitable  places 
for  boys  and  girls  leaving  school.  The  Placement  Bureau  had  rendered 
effective  service  in  re-placing  boys  and  girls  who  have  left  positions  for 
one  reason  or  another.  Many  vocational  counselors  in  the  schools 
are  accustomed  to  resort  to  the  Placement  Bureau  in  seeking  proper 
places  for  boys  and  girls  who  leave  school.  The  Boston  Chamber  of 
Commerce  has  aided  the  Placement  Bureau  freely  by  urging  employers 
to  resort  to  the  institution  in  looking  for  juvenile  employees. 

During  the  past  few  years  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  acquaint 
our  voluntary  workers  in  vocational  guidance  with  some  of  the  most 
important  facts  and  conditions  of  industry  and  business.  Our  vocational 
counselors  everywhere,  except  in  certain  special  schools  mentioned 
above,  serve  without  additional  compensation  and  also  with  no  exemp- 
tion from  their  regular  duties.  Consequently,  no  large  demands  upon 
their  time  can  reasonably  be  expected.  Business  men,  store  superin- 
tendents, and  trade  experts,  have,  from  time  to  time,  made  addresses 
to  gatherings  of  vocational  counselors  assembled  from  all  over  the  city 
at  central  points.  Some  benefit  from  the  general  discussions  character- 
izing those  meetings  has  been  the  result,  but  too  long  continuance  of 
this  procedure  did  not  promise  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  counselors. 
Here  benefit  has  resulted  from  contact  with  special  private  institutions 
like  the  Vocation  Bureau  and  the  Girls'  Trade  Education  League.  The 
bulletins  and  monographs  of  those  two  organizations  have  been  of  value 
in  furnishing  the  specific  information  about  industry  and  business  to- 
gether with  wages  and  working  conditions  prevailing  therein,  which 
the  counselors  need  to  know.  We  have  been  fortunate  in  Boston  in 


22  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

enjoying  close  association  with  the  Vocation  Bureau  which  has  been  a 
central  point  of  organization  and  information  upon  vocational  guid- 
ance for  the  whole  country.  We  owe  today  our  vision  of  the  possibilities 
and  appreciation  of  the  need  of  vocational  guidance  to  the  Vocation 
Bureau. 

During  the  current  year  we  are  trying  a  different  method  from  the 
lecture  system  in  acquainting  our  counselors  with  the  problems  and 
duties  of  guidance.  We  are  carrying  on  a  series  of  locality  conferences 
under  the  charge  of  the  director  at  which  discussions  take  place,  encour- 
aging the  way  to  solve  problems  as  they  originate  in  the  schools.  The 
attempt  is  thus  being  made  to  organize  the  experience  of  the  members 
of  local  groups  who  usually  are  confronted  with  conditions  rendered 
more  or  less  uniform  by  reason  of  similarly  prevailing  social  and  economic 
circumstances.  As  stated  before,  the  present  problems  of  vocational 
guidance  are  more  obvious  than  obscure,  but  organizing  the  obvious  is 
not  an  involuntary,  automatic  process,  but  requires  specific  and  careful 
attention,  and  needs  completion  before  more  developed  and  complex 
procedure  may  be  undertaken. 

The  next  step  towards  a  moderate  expansion  of  the  progress  of 
vocational  guidance  will  be  to  attempt  to  secure  either  a  small  additional 
compensation,  say  $50  a  year,  for  the  additional  service  rendered,  or 
some  exemption  from  routine  duties,  so  that  there  shall  be  better  oppor- 
tunity to  perform  the  special  tasks  assumed  by  vocational  counselors. 
Each  school  ought  to  have  at  least  one  official  vocational  assistant, 
who  should  write  all  leaving  cards  and  who  should  be  a  local  head  to 
whom  the  other  teachers  may  resort  for  information  needed  in  meeting 
guidance  problems  not  immediately  apparent.  Every  school  teacher 
should  be  in  effect  a  vocational  and  life  counselor,  and  should  expect 
to  serve  in  this  capacity  without  additional  compensation  or  exemption 
from  other  duties.  To  be  an  effective  teacher  means  primarily  to  possess 
and  exhibit  personal  sympathy  with  the  life  and  vocational  problems 
of  all  boys  and  girls  coming  under  his  influence.  Mr.  Gradgrind  came 
to  realize  through  sorrowful,  personal  experience,  that  there  is  an  edu- 
cation of  the  heart  as  well  as  an  education  of  the  head;  and  the  develop- 
ment of  modern  school  principles  has  shown  the  recognition  of  a  similar 
lesson.  It  is  well  that  the  present  keenness  for  standardization  and 
measurement  of  educational  products  is  contemporaneous  with  the 
interest  in  vocational  guidance,  else  we  might  unwittingly  revert  in  a 
degree  to  the  fact  basis  which  characterized  Thomas  Gradgrind's  select 
school.  There  is  need,  however,  of  at  least  one  vocational  specialist 
in  such  elementary  school,  and  probably  more  than  one  in  each  high 
school,  for  the  problems  of  vocational  guidance  often  go  deeper  than 
mere  personal  interest  and  sympathy  can  penetrate.  There  is  likewise 
a  need  for  a  general  director  of  vocational  guidance  to  whom  the  local 
vocational  counselors  may  go  for  information  and  assistance  beyond 
their  own  experience. 

The  functions  of  vocational  guidance  should  be  more  extensive 
than  usually  conceived  at  the  present  time;  in  fact,  vocational  guidance, 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  23 

in  its  limited  sense,  cannot  be  fully  effective  unless  supplemented  by 
personal,  moral  and  social  guidance.  Unless  the  function  of  guidance 
is  broadened  we  may  be  in  danger  of  having  the  enterprise  looked 
upon  as  a  sort  of  sublimated  fortune-telling  or  palm-reading.  We  feel 
the  need  in  the  schools,  as  never  before,  of  knowing  more  of  the  home 
environment  and  limiting  circumstances  of  the  boys  and  girls  in  our 
schools.  But  the  schools  at  present  lack  organization  and  the  means  of 
assuming  effectively  larger  burdens.  Quite  recently  one  large  high 
school  in  Boston  has  accepted  the  assistance  of  the  social  workers  of 
several  settlement  houses  in  investigating  cases  of  school  delinquency 
and  irregularities.  These  school  visitors  have  been  asked  to  go  into 
the  home  to  confer  with  parents  about  failure  in  school  work,  about 
irregular  attendance,  and  about  marked  infractions  of  school  discipline. 
The  results  have  proven  of  great  service  to  the  teachers  of  the  school 
and  to  the  parents  of  the  children.  The  teachers  more  often  than  not, 
have  seen  that  they  have  misunderstood  the  causes  of  failure  to  respond 
to  accepted  class-room  standards,  that  what  was  supposed  to  be  a  moral 
lack  was  in  reality  something  very  different  and  quite  comendable  when 
the  real  reasons  had  been  secured.  The  parents,  as  well,  have  been 
led  to  see  that  the  school  is  something  more  than  an  unsympathetic 
institution  making  demands  for  conformity  with  regulations  more  legal 
than  human. 

There  may  properly  arise  doubts  in  the  minds  of  many  that  inter- 
mediaries between  the  school  and  the  home,  performing  duties  which 
require  so  much  tact  and  discretion,  should  not  be  properly  under  the 
sole  authority  of  the  school.  The  bringing  of  the  school  and  the  home 
together,  however,  needs  to  be  effected  if  the  larger  usefulness  of  the 
school  is  to  be  accomplished  and  if  the  individual  child  who  needs  it  is 
to  be  benefited. 

The  vocational  counselor,  or  perhaps  we  should  say  the  school 
counselor,  may  properly  conceive  her  duties  as  embracing  quite  prom- 
inently the  functions  indicated  immediately  preceding.  She  should 
know  the  child  in  the  school,  in  the  home,  and  in  the  workshop;  and 
should  be  a  source  of  guidance  to  the  teacher  in  the  classroom,  to  the 
parents  in  the  home,  and  to  the  child  in  his  several  relations  in  the 
home,  the  school  and  the  workshop. 

It  is  quite  natural  that  it  should  be  assumed  that  there  is  a  place 
in  many  schools,  both  elementary  and  secondary  in  our  large  cities 
for  one  or  more  trained  teachers  possessing  both  sympathy  and  capacity 
for  the  problems  of  the  counselor.  The  principle  that  vocational 
schools  need  this  special  service  is  already  admitted  in  Boston  and 
elsewhere.  It  will  be  illogical  to  deny  that  general  schools  need  similar 
special  service,  for  the  motive  today  of  our  secondary  schools  is  largely 
vocational.  A  large  number  of  our  boys  and  girls  are  unable  to  find 
places  in  our  special  vocational  schools  and  resort  to  the  general  schools 
where  they  pursue  special  courses  which  promise  to  offer  some  of  the 
advantages  of  the  special  school.  A  current  study  into  the  state  of 
commercial  education  in  our  Boston  high  schools  reveals  the  fact  that 


24  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

from  50  to  90  per  cent  of  our  pupils  are  enrolled  in  commercial  courses. 
This  means  that  there  are  in  this  single  field  thousands  of  boys  and  girls 
in  our  own  school  system  who  need  the  special  service  of  guidance, 
placement  and  follow-up  work.  Our  boys  and  girls  are  receiving  this 
attention  in  part  and  as  much  as  is  reasonably  possible  under  the  limi- 
tations of  the  time  and  energy  of  the  regular  teachers,  but  the  short- 
comings of  our  present  achievements  simply  emphasize  the  need  of 
additional  and  more  expert  assistance  if  the  sound,  sensible  and  long 
cherished  aim  of  our  schools  is  to  be  better  realized  in  our  day  and 
generation. 

An  able  and  influential  monthly  magazine  contains  in  the  current 
issue  a  bitter  and  brilliant  indictment  of  our  American  school  system, 
comparing  it  disadvantageously  to  the  system  of  Sweden  and  Norway, 
with  their  agricultural  and  technical  folk  schools.  "We  are  content," 
our  critic  says,  "to  hang  the  alphabet  and  multiplication  table  around 
the  child's  neck,  and  then  send  the  poor  thing  out  to  educate  itself." 

The  awakening  of  the  people  and  the  teachers  of  this  country  to 
the  need  of  vocational  education,  vocational  guidance,  varied  and  specific 
educational  opportunities  of  a  great  variety,  constitutes  the  best  answer 
to  the  above  taunt.  We  have  not  as  a  nation  failed  to  hold  a  noble 
aim  for  education,  but  many  will  agree  that  we  need  to  proceed  ener- 
getically towards  the  adoption  and  extension  of  more  effective  methods 
of  attaining  our  aim. 


SOME    SUGGESTIONS    FOR   PRESENTING   A   COURSE    IN 

VOCATIONAL    INFORMATION    TO    PUPILS     IN 

OUR  SMALLER   SCHOOLS 

WILLIAM  A.  WHEATLEY 
SUPERINTENDENT  OF  SCHOOLS,  MIDDLETOWN,  CONN. 

Vocational  success,  it  would  seem,  depends  fundamentally  upon 
information  in  two  important  related  fields;  first,  information  of  the 
world's  work,  the  worthy  vocations  that  men  follow,  presented  both 
in  a  general  way  and  also  in  a  concrete,  localized  form;  and  second, 
information  of  the  pupil's  present  and  potential  fitness  for  some  one 
or  more  of  these  life  occupations.  This  study  of  the  pupil's  natural 
qualifications,  is  far  more  interesting  when  approached  from  the  view- 
point of  what  the  various  vocations  would  demand  of  him.  The  pupil 
sees  that  he  is  not  simply  to  be  fit,  in  the  abstract,  but  fit  for  some  worth- 
while life  work. 

After  the  pupil  knows,  or  thinks  he  knows,  what  life-work  he  pur- 
poses to  make  his  own,  then  he  must  prepare  himself  by  general  edu- 
cation and  special  training  to  succeed  most  thoroughly  in  this  vocation. 
Here  is  where  the  life-career  motive  enters  and  inspires  the  school  work, 
both  keeping  the  boy  in  school  and  vitalizing  his  preparation  and  his 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  25 

application  of  the  lessons.  Some  fear  that  if  a  vocation  is  chosen  early 
and  then  is  found  later  to  be  undesirable,  this  would  mean  a  great  loss 
to  the  pupil.  While  changing  from  one  life  calling  to  another,  either 
in  the  preparatory  stage  or  after  entrance  upon  the  work,  does  mean 
of  necessity  some  loss,  in  the  preparatory  stage  at  least  it  can  not  amount 
to  so  much  waste  of  time  or  effort  as  to  offset  the  vitalizing  effect  of 
the  life-career  motive  upon  the  school  work  during  the  years  when  it 
was  operative.  With  one's  future  vocation  in  mind  as  an  ideal  field 
of  activity,  one  can  meet  most  successfully  and  most  happily  prepare 
himself  for  its  demands. 

All  will  doubtless  admit  that  this  information  of  vocations  and  of 
the  pupil's  qualifications  for  these,  together  with  a  very  practical  appli- 
cation of  this  information  to  (l),the  characteristics  of  a  suitable  vo- 
cation; (2),  the  method  of  selecting  one's  life  work;  (3),  the  best  general 
education;  (4),  the  special  training  necessary,  and  (5),  entering  and 
succeeding  in  one's  life  work, — all,  I  say,  will  surely  agree  that  this 
information  is  a  necessary  requisite  for  the  largest  vocational  success 
of  our  pupils. 

If  already  fifty  cities  in  America  not  only  see  the  need,  but  are 
actually  supplying  their  youth  with  guidance  in  the  choice  of  a  life  work, 
what  can  we  do  to  make  this  great  movement  general.  Hundreds  of 
other  smaller  cities  and  villages  are  doubltess  as  willing  to  do  for  their 
young  people  as  the  larger  and  richer  centers,  but  just  how,  in  what 
form,  can  they  afford  to  furnish  this  vocational  guidance? 

Mr.  Jesse  B.  Davis,  of  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan,  our  Secretary 
has  inaugurated  one  excellent  form  of  supplying  this  vocational  infor- 
mation through  English  Composition.  Then  there  is  the  DeKalb,  111., 
plan  of  Guidance  by  Systematic  Courses  of  Instruction  in  Vocation- 
Opportunities  and  Personal  Characteristics.  Somewhat  similar  to  the 
DeKalb  plan  is  that  which  we  worked  out  six  years  ago  in  the  West- 
port,  Conn.,  High  School  and  introduced  three  years  ago  into  the  Middle- 
town,  Conn.,  High  School.  But  before  explaining  our  half-year  course 
in  Vocational  Information,  thus  far  for  boys  only,  let  me  suggest  that 
in  our  smaller  high  schools  and  possibly  in  the  upper  grammar  grades  as 
well,  wherever  the  expense  of  the  professional  vocational  counselor 
can  not  be  afforded,  that  any  one  of  these  three  plans  of  vocational 
guidance  could  be  provided  at  a  slight  cost,  any  one  of  them  would 
effect  a  valuable  service,  and  some  one  of  them,  or  its  equivalent,  it  would 
seem,  ought  to  be  introduced  and  adapted  to  the  local  needs. 

Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  those  who  talk  about  our  already 
crowded  curriculums  did  not  stop  to  consider  that  these  may  be  over- 
crowded with  the  wrong  things,  with  non-essential  subjects  while  truly 
vital  ones  are  crowded  out?  The  proper  tests  of  the  rightful  place  in 
the  curriculum  would  seem  to  be  met  by  those  subjects,  whether  new 
or  time  honored,  that  are  most  needed  by  the  young  people  for  their 
successful  adjustment  to  after  school  life.  There  is  still  and  always 
will  be  plenty  of  room  in  our  curriculums  for  all  vitally  essential  subjects. 


26  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

Now  may  I  outline  for  you  our  course  in  Vocational  Information? 
This  we  divide  into  three  parts,  as  follows:  The  first  is  a  careful  con- 
sideration of  the  Importance  of  Vocational  Information,  the  Character- 
istics of  a  Good  Vocation,  and  How  to  Study  Vocations;  the  second 
and  main  part  is  a  detailed  treatment  of  some  of  eighty  or  ninety  pro- 
fessions, trades  and  life  occupations  grouped  under  Agriculture,  Com- 
mercial Occupations,  Railroading,  Civil  Service,  Manufacturing,  Machine 
and  Related  Trades,  the  Engineering  Professions,  the  Building  Trades, 
the  Learned  Professions  and  Allied  Occupations  and  Miscellaneous  and 
New  Openings;  and  the  third  and  concluding  part  of  the  course  is  a 
practical,  thorough-going  discussion  of  Choosing  One's  Life  Work, 
Securing  a  Position  and  Efficient  Work  and  Its  Reward. 

Unfortunately,  although  there  are  many  excellent  reference  books, 
bulletins,  etc.,  there  seems  to  be  as  yet  no  one  suitable  book  which  the 
pupils  can  use  as  a  basal  text.  We  have  found  the  following  books 
fairly  satisfactory  as  companion  texts  when  supplemented  by  consider- 
able collateral  reading:  "Careers  for  the  Coming  Men"  by  Whitelaw 
Reid  and  others;  "What  Shall  Our  Boys  Do  for  a  Living?"  by  Chas.  F. 
Wingate,  and  "What  Can  a  Young  Man  Do?"  by  Frank  W.  Rollins. 
.Among  the  best  reference  works  for  the  pupils  the  following  are  worthy 
of  mention;  the  vocational  booklets  published  by  the  Vocation  Bureau 
of  Boston  and  by  the  Students'  Aid  Committee  of  the  High  School 
Teachers'  Association  of  New  York  City;  many  free  bulletins  issued  by 
the  Federal  and  various  State  Governments  and  by  the  International 
Correspondence  Schools;  catalogues,-  bulletins  and  pamphlets  of  colleges 
and  of  trade  and  professional  schools,  many  trade  journals,  and  a  series 
of  ten  volumes  on  "Vocations"  edited  by  William  DeWitt  Hyde. 

In  studying  each  of  the  vocations  we  touch  upon  its  healthfulness, 
remuneration,  value  to  society  and  social  standing,  as  well  as  upon  the 
natural  qualifications,  general  education,  and  special  preparation  nec- 
essary for  success.  Naturally,  we  investigate  at  first  hand  as  many  as 
possible  of  the  vocations  found  in  our  city  and  vicinity.  Each  pupil  is 
encouraged  to  bring  from  home  first-hand,  and,  as  far  as  practicable, 
"inside"  facts  concerning  his  father's  occupation.  Local  professional 
men,  engineers,  business  men,  manufacturers,  mechanics,  and  agri- 
culturists are  invited  to  present  informally  and  quite  personally  the 
salient  features  of  their  various  vocations. 

In  order  to  make  this  presentation  of  our  course  in  vocational  infor- 
mation as  concrete  and  understandable  as  possible,  I  shall  now  outline 
for  you  a  typical  lesson  plan  on  the  Mechanical  Engineer.  Also  let 
me  again  remind  you  that  our  work  so  far  has  been  adapted  to  the  boys 
only,  a  little  later  I  shall  speak  of  our  immediate  plans  for  the  girls. 
The  lesson  plan  now  follows: 

A  LESSON  PLAN  ON  THE  MECHANICAL  ENGINEER 

THE  PLACE  AND  SETTING  OF  THE  LESSON: — The  treatment  of  the 
Mechanical  Engineer  in  the  textbook  will  be  found  in  the  chapter  devoted 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  27 

to  the  Engineering  Professions.  Before  this  particular  lesson  is  taken 
up  the  class  have  already  studied  a  general  introduction  to  the  whole 
field  of  engineering,  touching  upon  the  history,  the  general  division 
into  civil  and  military  engineering,  and  the  inestimable  services  this 
group  of  men  have  rendered  and  continue  to  render  mankind  in  relation 
to  inventions,  manufacturing,  transportation,  communication,  conser- 
vation, sanitation,  etc.,  instancing  such  triumphs  as  the  telegraph,  the 
modern  printing  press,  an  automobile  factory,  the  Simplon  Tunnel, 
the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  the  Panama  Canal,  Reclamation  of  Western  land, 
etc. 

Next  there  has  been  considered  in  brief  outline  a  general  scheme 
of  the  work  performed  by  each  of  the  following  engineers:  the  Civil 
Engineer;  the  Municipal  and  Sanitary  Engineer;  the  Mechanical 
Engineer;  the  Electrical  Engineer;  the  Mining  Engineer;  the  Metal- 
lurgical Engineer;  the  Industrial  Chemist;  and  the  Architectural  Engi- 
neer. After  completing  this  general  survey  of  the  engineering  field,  the 
class  have  treated  in  detailed  fashion  the  callings  of  the  Civil  Engineer 
and  of  the  Municipal  and  Sanitary  Engineer.  They  are  now  ready  to 
undertake  this  lesson  on  the  Mechanical  Engineer,  which  we  are  about 
to  outline,  and  then  they  will  make  a  similar  detailed  study  of  the  re- 
maining five  engineers,  whose  general  scheme  of  work  we  have  already 
surveyed,  and  thus  they  will  complete  the  chapter  on  the  engineering 
professions. 

LESSON  ASSIGNMENTS  PREPARATORY  TO  THE  RECITATION: — So  much 
for  the  setting  of  the  lesson  on  the  Mechanical  Engineer.  In  preparation 
for  the  class  exercise  or  recitation  the  whole  class  are  asked  to  review 
the  general  scheme  of  the  work  and  to  study  the  new  section  in  their 
textbook  or  books  dealing  with  the  nature  of  this  special  branch  of 
engineering,  its  advantages  and  disadvantages  as  a  life  calling,  the 
remuneration  at  the  start  and  in  a  man's  prime,  the  opportunities  for 
regular  employment  and  advancement,  and  the  natural  qualifications, 
the  general  education  and  the  special  training  required. 

The  entire  class  as  individuals  or  in  small  groups  have  been  assigned 
special  topics  in  such  free  bulletins  as,  "Graduates  and  Their  Occupations" 
published  by  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology.  "Suggestions 
Concerning  the  Choice  of  a  Course  in  Engineeering,"  issued  by  the 
Carnegie  Institute  of  Technology.  "Announcement  of  the  Co-operative 
Courses  of  the  University  of  Cincinnati,"  and  "Mechanical  Engineer- 
ing," by  the  International  Correspondence  Schools;  in  such  catalogues 
as  those  of  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  Columbia  School 
of  Mines,  Cornell  University,  etc.;  in  such  books  as  Goddard's  "Eminent 
Engineers,"  and  McCullough's  "Engineering  as  a  Vocation,"  and,  if 
possible,  in  at  least  two  of  these  periodicals:  Popular  Mechanics, 
Scientific  American,  Engineering  Magazine,  and  Engineering  News. 

One  or  two  of  the  pupils,  especially  interested  in  this  vocation, 
should  interview  a  nearby  mechanical  engineer  in  order  to  report  to 
the  class  some  such  items  of  interest  as  the  following:  What  work 


28  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION 

this  engineer  is  engaged  in  at  present;  What  he  considers  the  greatest 
piece  of  mechanical  engineering  in  the  neighborhood;  How  he  ranks 
his  branch  of  engineering  with  the  others;  What  natural  or  native 
qualifications  he  considers  of  greatest  value  to  the  prospective  engineer; 
What  subjects  in  high  school  he  considers  of  most  importance  for  his 
calling;  Would  he  advise  the  regular  technological  course  or  the  co- 
operative school  and  shop  course;  Does  he  consider  mechanical  engi- 
neering an  especially  attractive  profession,  etc. 

While  studying  this  branch  of  engineering,  or  some  other,  it  would 
be  well  to  secure  a  practical,  successful  engineer  to  talk  to  the  class 
informally  about  any  phases  of  his  profession  or  any  experiences  that 
would  prove  of  especial  interest  and  value  to  the  study. 

THE  CLASS  EXERCISE  OR  RECITATION: — During  the  recitation  the 
class  might  discuss  such  topics  as:  Which  of  the  three  engineers  so  far 
studied  in  detail  renders  society  the  greatest  service;  Which  one  is  most 
necessary  to  your  particular  community;  Which  one's  work  seems 
perhaps  the  most  attractive;  What  natural  qualifications,  what  general 
education,  and  what  special  training  are  absolutely  necessary  for  success 
in  this  profession;  What  subjects  should  constitute  the  best  high  school 
course  preparatory  to  this  profession;  What  subjects  do  the  best  techno- 
logical schools  demand  for  entrance;  What  are  the  advantages  and 
disadvantages  of  preparing  for  this  profession  in  a  co-operative  school 
and  shop  course;  What  kind  of  work  during  summer  vacations  would 
serve  best  in  trying  out  a  boys'  aptitude  for  mechanical  engineering; 
What  is  the  difference  between  an  expert  machinist  and  a  mechanical 
engineer;  What  is  a  contracting  mechanical  engineer,  etc. 

We  are  planning  to  introduce  a  similar  course  for  girls  the  second 
half  of  this  year  and  shall  use  as  texts,  Lasalle  and  Wiley's  "Vocations 
for  Girls,"  Weaver's  "Vocations  for  Girls,"  and  Perkins'  "Vocations 
for  the  Trained  Woman,"  directly  supplemented  by  the  dozen  or  more 
pamphlets  issued  by  the  Appointment  Bureau  of  the  Women's  Edu- 
cational and  Industrial  Union  of  Boston,  Mass. 

When  we  consider  that  such  a  course  in  vocational  information 
is  practicable  everywhere  and  inexpensive,  and  that  besides  being  intrin- 
sically interesting  to  the  pupils',  it  actually  gives  them  greater  respect 
for  all  kinds  of  honorable  work,  helps  them  sooner  or  later  to  choose 
more  wisely  their  life  work,  convinces  them  of  the  absolute  necessity 
for  a  thorough  preparation  before  entering  any  vocation  and  holds  to 
the  end  of  the  high  school  course  many  who  would  otherwise  drop  out 
early  in  the  race,  should  we  then  apologize  when  we  urge  upon  educators 
and  the  tax  paying  public  that  this  branch  of  vital  human  knowledge 
be  given  a  place  in  all  our  high  schools,  especially  when  it  will  require 
only  as  much  time  as  commercial  arithmetic  or  geography,  or  one-half 
as  much  as  algebra,  or  one-sixth  as  much  as  German  or  French,  or  finally 
one-eighth  as  much  as  Latin? 

Let  us  not  forget  that  there  are  already  fifty  American  cities  and 
towns  giving  their  youth  some  form  of  systematic  vocational  guidance. 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  29 

These  have  done  the  hard  pioneer  work;  why  can  we  not  increase  the 
number  to  500  within  a  year  or  two  and  then  make  it  general  within  five 
years?  We  can  easily  effect  this,  if  every  earnest  educator  will  do  his 
own  part  in  his  own  school  system. 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  AND  THE  CURRICULUM 

IRA  S.  WILE,   M.  D. 
MEMBER  BOARD  OF  EDUCATION,  NEW  YORK  CITY 

It  has  been  claimed,  and  not  without  some  justification,  that  the 
present  school  curricula  are  virtually  designed  for  the  development 
of  children  preparing  themselves  for  the  professions  of  medicine,  law, 
or  the  ministry.  This  criticism  is  not  wholly  accurate  because  what- 
ever preliminary  education  is  bound  up  in  the  elementary  school  curri- 
culum, it  is  impossible  to  enter  a  liberal  profession  without  many  years 
of  additional  general  and  special  training.  It  is,  however,  undoubtedly 
true  that  the  fundamentals  of  the  elementary  school  curricula  were 
called  forth  by  the  educational  needs  of  those  whose  careers  are  not 
really  begun  until  numerous  studies  have  been  completed  at  a  high 
school  or  a  college.  Inasmuch  as  only  4.4  per  cent  of  our  population 
is  engaged  in  professional  life,  it  is  manifest  that  the  curriculum  should 
not  be  based  upon  the  needs  of  this  small  proportion  of  the  population. 
Recent  studies  in  the  character  of  occupations  entered  by  college  grad- 
uates indicate  that  a  larger  proportion  are  entering  into  business  and 
teaching.  This  reflects  a  new  spirit  in  colleges,  and  makes  it  patent 
that  education  is  being  regarded  as  a  valuable  general  asset  in  more 
walks  of  life  than  those  leading  to  the  liberal  professions.  Wherefore, 
a  new  interpretation  of  the  elementary  school  curriculum  is  required. 

Inasmuch  as  only  a  small  proportion  of  our  elementary  school 
graduates  enter  high  schools,  and  a  still  smaller  proportion  go  on  to 
college,  the  elementary  school  should  not  be  regarded  merely  as  a  college 
preparatory  school,  but  as  a  unit  more  or  less  complete  in  itself.  In  a 
higher  educational  sense,  the  function  of  elementary  schools  is  not  really 
to  prepare  children  for  their  life  work,  but  to  give  them  the  training 
and  instruction  preliminary  to  the  selection  of  their  life  work.  Further- 
more, the  function  of  the  elementary  school  is  to  educate  children 
living  for  twenty-four  hours  a  day.  The  curriculum  must  prepare  for 
avocation  as  well  as  vocation. 

In  a  consideration  of  the  methods  of  curriculum  preparation,  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  two  things  are  involved:  First,  education 
for  work,  and  second,  education  by  work.  These  two  phases  are  not 
completely  isolated,  but  are  thoroughly  inter-related,  and  by  and  through 
them  comes  freedom  from  the  old  enslaving  theory  of  knowledge  for 
the  sake  of  knowledge. 

If  we  grant,  as  I  am  sure  we  do,  that  there  must  be  a  more  definite 
adaptation  of  education  to  the  life  of  the  community,  it  is  imperative 


30  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION 

that  more  life  and  vital  experience  be  placed  in  the  curriculum  in  a 
form  comprehensive  to- children.  Education  can  no  longer  be  regarded 
as  cultural  abstraction,  but  should  be  made  culturally  concrete  so  far 
as  may  be  possible. 

By  vocationalizing^  tfie  outlook  on  education,  by  considering  its 
practical  applications,  one"  is  brought  face  to  face  with  tie  problems  of 
vocational  guidance.  ^Fujftdamentally,  one  must  reach  •'aj  safe  point  of 
view  from  which  to  look  fupon  the  entire  situation.  Is  vocational  guid- 
ance to  be  regarded  principally  as  an  educational  scheme, f>r  as  an  econ- 
omic movement?  Is  if  to  present  the  problems  of  education  merely  in 
terms  of  dollars  and  cents,  or  in  terms  of  human  development  and  human 
adaptation? 

I  am  willing  to  admit  that  if  education  means  anything,  it  does 
mean  adequate  economic  return,  or  at  least  will  when  the  question  of 
efficiency  in  education  is  appreciated  by  the  industrial  world,  which 
today  criticizes  education  because  of  its  shortcomings,  but  fails  to  ap- 
preciate its  own  lack  of  understanding  of  the  value  of  trained  working- 
men.  In  so  far  as  vocational  guidance  is  direction  into  proper  edu- 
cational channels,  it  is  essentially  an  educational  plan. 

The  general  curriculum  provides  what  Dean  has  termed  the  "way 
in"  education,  and  should  present  numerous  sign  posts  to  the  "way  out" 
education.  It  requires  in  essence  the  broad  general  knowledge  essential 
to  efficiency  in  every  phase  of  human  endeavor,  together  with  a  diver- 
sified industrial  experience  to  permit  of  specific  adaptation  leading  to 
further  education  in  accord  with  personal  aptitudes  and  predilections. 

The  effect  of  compulsory  education  laws  upon  curriculum  making 
as  related  to  vocational  guidance  is  readily  appreciated.  The  longer 
the  period  of  time  of  compulsory  educational  attendance,  the  greater 
the  responsibility  in  organizing  a  curriculum  so  as  to  supply  the  extensive 
and  intensive  subject  matter  requisite  to  assist  in  vocational  guidance. 
The  longer  the  period  of  time  a  child  is  in  school,  the  more  efficient  may 
vocational  guidance  become,  and  the  greater  become  the  possibilities 
of  the  scientific  development  of  the  educational  and  psychological  tests 
which  are  necessary  for  wise  vocational  counsel. 

Personally,  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  it  is  largely  necessary  to  re- 
organize the  curriculum  of  our  elementary  schools  on  the  basis  of  a 
six  years'  general  course  followed  by  two  or  three  years  of  differentiated 
courses  along  commercial,  industrial  and  academic  lines.  Such  different- 
iated courses  should  be  balanced  and  of  equal  educational  value  in  so 
far  as  their  cultural  aspects  are  concerned  and  each  should  possess  a 
vitalizing  and  stimulating  vocational  tendency.  Such  differentiations 
in  subject  matter  should  unfold  the  general  principles  of  vocations 
and  reveal  many  previously  unnoted  aspirations,  vocational  needs  and 
aptitudes.  The  curriculum  itself  should  be  elastic  and  adjustable, 
particularly  in  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  education  of  over-age  children. 
Furthermore,  in  order  to  lessen  the  problems  of  retardation  and  elimin- 
ation, there  should  be  a  greater  adaptability  of  the  curriculum  to  the 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  31 

potential  educability  of  the  students  whose  minds  are  not  all  fashioned 
in  the  same  mould.  The  school  curriculum  in  itself  necessarily  must 
play  a  tremendously  important  part  in  the  vocational  guidance  work 
of  the  future. 

In  my  estimation,  the  educational  aspects  of  vocational  guidance 
are  more  or  less  opposed  to  placement  work,  as  ordinarily  considered. 
The  aim  of  vocational  guidance  should  be  guidance  to  further  vocational 
education.  It  is  true  that  some  of  this  may  be  accomplished  possibly 
through  placement,  but  as  a  general  rule  placement  depends  upon  avail- 
able jobs  and  the  educational  element  is  all  too  frequently  subordinated 
to  the  immediate 'pecuniary  results.  I  grant  that  placement  tends  to 
eliminate  the  random  job  and  seeks  to  substitute  a  selected  and  theoreti- 
cally adapted  job  plus  encouragement  to  secure  further  education.  The 
moral  support  of  the  recently  placed  child  may  be  a  factor  in  securing 
educational  results.  Considered  in  this  light,  placement  best  takes  its 
position  in  an  educational  scheme  of  vocational  guidance,  under  the 
determination  of  a  curriculum  designed  to  promote  the  continuation 
school  plan  of  teaching. 

The  traditional  culture  afforded  by  the  old  types  of  curricula,  was 
largely  conventional  and  avocational.  Today,  education  is  regarded 
as  a  tool  and  not  an  end.  Utility  should  be  the  key  to  unlock  the  prob- 
lem of  curriculum  making. 

To  transmit  the  thought  of  the  past  as  well  as  to  present  adequately 
the  problems  of  our  own  day,  a  knowledge  of  English  is  essential.  It  is 
an  instrument  of  self-revelation.  Wherefore,  the  place  of  English  in 
the  curriculum  is  of  exceedingly  great  importance.  Nevertheless, 
vocational  triumphs  may  be  achieved  with  poor  pronunciation  and  worse 
grammatical  construction.  It  is  immaterial  that  classic  English  be 
utilized  as  the  basis  of  instruction,  A  knowledge  of  the  classics  is  dis- 
tinctly -cultural  without  vocational  utility,  save  in  literary  pursuits. 
Industrial  and  commercial  literature  should  be  available  for  its  awaken- 
ing effect. 

The  teaching  of  arithmetic,  the  giving  of  instruction  in  weights, 
measures,  and  calculations  of  all  types  represents  the  school  recognition 
of  commercialism  and  is  not  absolutely  essential  to  living,  though  it  is 
in  a  large  sense  fundamental  to  a  life  of  active  industrial  or  commercial 
occupation.  For  guidance  the  content  must  be  rich  in  concrete  facts 
basic  for  vocational  choice. 

The  study  of  both  English  and  arithmetic  PER  SE  have  little  guid- 
ing value  in  its  accepted  sense,  but  are  strong  factors  in  intellectual  life 
and  self-development.  They  are  necessary  adjuncts  for  the  develop- 
ment of  self-revelation  and  self-expression.  They  are  instruments 
guiding  the  choice  among  transient  interests  and  surely  lead  to  the 
arousing  of  latent  thoughts,  interests  and  powers.  A  breadth  of  the 
course  of  study  in  English  and  arithmetic  is  necessary  in  order  to  create 
ambitions,  to  satisfy  which  vocational  guidance  offers  counsel  and  advice 
as  to  the  specific  lines  of  study  to  be  pursued. 


32  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

The  aim  of  an  elementary  school  curriculum  should  be  to  give  the 
maximum  number  of  contacts  with  life  problems.  It  is  only  just  to 
say  that  the  mere  establishment  of  a  rational  curriculum  is  insufficient. 
The  development  of  syllabuses,  and  the  adequate  training  of  teachers 
in  the  methods  of  imparting  instruction  are  equally  essential  in  order 
to  establish  the  vitalizing  principles  necessary  for  vocational  guidance. 
In  a  broad  sense,  in  the  elementary  schools,  there  should  be  little  vo- 
cational guidance  in  the  sense  of  preparing  children  for  particular  jobs. 
A  strong  plea  should  be  made  for  the  establishment  of  a  curriculum 
which  will  provide  the  common  training  requisite  for  all  employments. 
It  should  afford  a  basic  foundation  for  vocational  work.  A  function 
of  vocational  guidance  to  foster  good  citizenship.  Wherefore,  there  is 
a  definite  place  for  history  and  civics  in  the  school  curriculum,  but  the 
development  of  these  two  topics  should  be  with  reference  to  the  evo- 
lution of  civilization  in  all  its  social  and  economic  relations.  The  course 
in  history  should  not  spend  itself  upon  the  acquisition  of  facts  and  figures 
unrelated  to  the  problems  of  the  children's  day  and  generation. 

The  communal  value  of  individuals  in  terms  of  human  service 
is  of  great  import,  particularly  in  cities.  Personal  good  health  and  its 
direct  and  indirect  contributions  to  the  public  health  in  industry,  and 
in  life  generally,  are  of  manifest  value.  Wherefore,  hygiene  and  physical 
training  merit  a  careful  consideration  in  curriculum  making.  Physical 
strength  and  defects  as  well  as  mental  shortcomings  are  essential  points 
to  be  considered  in  vocational  guidance. 

For  the  understanding  of  the  phenomena  of  life  in  its  largest  phases, 
for  avocational  purposes,  for  the  analysis  and  understanding  of  the 
laws  governing  life  in  general,  nature  study  and  elementary  science 
present  an  underestimated  field  of  value.  They  too,  are  fundamental 
subjects  to  be  considered  in  point  of  content  and  force  as  related  to' the 
problems  of  vocational  guidance.  They  serve  to  call  forth  powers  of 
perception,  dexterity,  analysis,  accuracy,  persistence  and  numerous 
other  attributes  worthy  of  note  by  avocational  counselors. 

To  develop  habits  of  investigation,  for  the  purpose  of  encouraging 
a  personal  philosophy,  and  for  tapping  the  current  thoughts  of  the 
nations  of  the  present  day,  the  study  of  language  must  be  regarded  as 
deserving  a  place  in  the  school  curriculum  for  those  capable  of  developing 
linguistic  ability.  In  so  far  as  such  subjects  call  into  action  the  latent 
powers,  create  new  interests,  and  develop  thought  and  aspiration,  they 
are  closely  related  to  the  educational  phases  of  vocational  guidance. 

From  the  standpoint  of  a  more  complete  development  of  child 
nature,  for  encouraging  muscular  cerebration,  for  co-ordinating  the 
activities  of  the  hands  and  the  mind,  for  augmenting  the  creative  in- 
stincts, and  for  developing  self-control  for  ultility,  manual  training  and 
domestic  science  must  not  be  forgotten  as  most  important  topics  to  be 
included  in  a  rational  course  of  study.  In  addition  to  these,  viewing 
vocational  guidance  in  its  broadest  aspect  as  relating  to  avocation  as 
well  as  vocation,  such  topics  as  ethics  and  esthetics,  including  music, 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  33 

drawing  and  dancing,  must  not  be  permitted  to  drop  into  obscurity. 
Such  so-called  frills  are  not  merely  for  the  purpose  of  encouraging  the 
development  of  all  the  virtues,  together  with  a  sense  of  rhythm  plus 
grace,  agility  and  litheness,  but  they  also  serve  to  induce  muscular  con- 
trol, muscular  memory,  alertness,  attention  and  general  physical  welfare 
as  well  as  aid  in  establishing  the  formation  of  a  moral  character.  In  so 
far  as  these  subjects  promote  the  useful  development  and  expression 
of  the  body,  mind  and  soul  of  children  they  are  helpful  in  vocational 
guidance. 

The  first  phase  in  the  organization  of  a  course  of  study  as  related 
to  vocational  guidance  demands  the  inclusion  of  those  subjects  which 
yield  preparation  for  all  vocations  regardless  of  the  abilities,  inclin- 
ations, latent  powers,  or  expressed  ambitions  of  school  children.  The 
second  phase  of  curriculum  making  involves  the  widening  of  vocational 
contacts.  Its  purpose  is  to  give  opportunity  for  self-discovery,  promote 
self-awakening,  and  stimulate  vocational  ambitions.  At  this  point, 
the  third  phase  develops  which  requires  the  re-construction  of  the  curri- 
culum along  general  lines  of  vocational  deflection. 

It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  there  are  inherent  advantages  in  a  curri- 
culum which  provides  a  six  years'  course  with  a  content  that  is  general 
in  nature.  At  puberty,  the  creative  and  imaginative  tendencies  are 
accentuated.  Aspirations  develop  and  talents  are  more  prone  to  become 
manifest.  At  this  period,  the  testing  out  process  should  be  advanced 
through  the  provision  of  courses  in  greater  variety,  not  leading  to  essential 
trade  training,  but  affording  a  knowledge  of  trade  principles.  Oppor- 
tunity is  thus  afforded  for  working  out  to  a  further  degree  the  vocational 
potentials  of  children.  This  refinement  of  the  curriculum  is  to  be  de- 
veloped on  a  tentative  basis,  for  it  will  constantly  require  revision  and 
improvement. 

The  function  of  vocational  guidance  is  to  secure  the  direction  of 
children  into  the  proper  higher  educational  channels.  Hence,  it  is 
important  that  the  curriculum  of  elementary  schools  be  so  elastic  and 
varied  as  to  tie  in  with  the  courses  of  study  in  schools  giving  special 
vocational  training,  the  trade  schools,  and  the  'secondary  schools,  and 
the  secondary  schools  of  academic  or  technical  nature.  Not  infre- 
quently, in  order  to  secure  proper  vocational  guidance,  it  may  be  actually 
necessary  to  guide  the  child  out  of  the  public  school  system  into  organized 
schools  of  experience.  This  naturally  involves  the  consideration  of 
continuation  schools  or  the  co-operation  with  industries  wherein  cor- 
poration schools  exist  which  provide  for  special  education  within  the 
industry. 

Not  alone  must  the  courses  of  study  provide  vocational  contacts, 
but  through  the  methods  of  instruction  they  must  serve  as  bureaus  of 
vocational  information  for  individual  students.  The  courses  of  study 
in  themselves  may  provide  in  their  content  a  wide  information  regard- 
ing the  commercial,  industrial  and  academic  life  of  adults,  including  the 
nature  of  occupations,  their  hazards,  the  number  of  persons  employed, 


34  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

the  wage  returns,  the  educational  possibilities  and  the  potential  returns 
to  adult  life  in  health,  wealth  and  happiness.  Obviously,  the  vocational 
aspects  in  a  course  of  study  of  a  guiding  nature  must  be  multiplied  in 
number,  variety,  and  intensiveness  as  the  ages  of  the  pupils  increase. 
This  is  to  be  construed  not  merely  as  chronological  age,  but  as  psycho- 
logical age. 

In  my  estimation,  preparation  for  a  specific  job  is  beyond  the  func- 
tion of  a  course  of  study  in  an  elementary  school.  The  nine  thousand 
occupations  which  are  recognized  by  the  United  States  Census  cannot 
be  included  in  any  sane  course  of  study,  nor  indeed  would  it  even  be 
possible  to  enumerate  the  countless  positions  which  are  offered  by  in- 
dustry. Under  the  present  organization  of  industry,  the  majority  of 
workmen  are  process  workers  and  little  more.  The  purpose  of  a  curri- 
culum must  be  broader  and  more  philosophic  than  merely  to  lead  to 
the  training  of  process  workers.  Job  education  is  a  responsibility  of 
industry.  Possibly,  it  bears  a  slight  relation  to  the  curricula  to  be 
formulated  for  continuation  schools.  Even  in  this  function,  in  so  far 
as  continuation  schools  are  related  to  specific  industries,  the  statement 
still  holds  true,  the  training  for  specific  jobs  is  a  responsibility  of  in- 
dustry. Undoubtedly,  the  extension  of  continuation  school  methods 
into  our  secondary  schools  might  help  in  this  particular  field. 

I  believe  that  the  basic  curriculum  of  elementary  schools  should 
be  general  in  nature,  but  rich  in  vocational  content.  Vocational  guid- 
ance in  the  educational  sense  virtually  is  bound  up  in  the  curriculum. 
The  only  other  type  of  vocational  guidance  is  job  finding,  and  job  finding 
is  not  necessarily  vocational  guidance.  Those  who  place  the  greatest 
stress  upon  this  phase  of  economic  assistance  largely  possess  the  idea 
of  guidance  from  without,  but  I  believe  the  essentials  of  vocational 
guidance  must  come  from  within,  from  the  school  system  and  the  child 
itself.  Vocational  guidance  virtually  means  the  direction  of  a  child 
towards  his  life  work.  Hence,  the  function  of  the  school  curriculum 
is  not  for  the  purpose  of  developing  jobsters,  much  less  the  turning  out 
of  children  trained  for  occupation  along  only  a  few  lines  of  employment. 

It  is  better  for  the  school  curriculum  to  inculcate  the  principles 
underlying  vocations,  to  give  a  wide  training  in  the  fundamental  pro- 
cesses common  to  various  large  industrial  groups,  rather  than  to  specify 
training  in  a  few  trades.  In  order  to  establish  school  curricula  scien- 
tifically upon  this  basis,  it  is  important  that  further  study  be  given  and 
investigations  be  made  of  the  fundamental  processes  existing  in  various 
broad  lines  of  industry.  Far  greater  educational  value  for  the  purpose 
of  vocational  guidance  is  secured  through  the  understanding  of  the 
principle  of  the  lever  and  the  pulley  than  the  ability  to  know  how  to 
operate  a  punch  press  or  a  power  machine. 

The  demonstration  of  industrial  principles  through  an  adapted 
curriculum  will  tend  to  arouse  the  latent  interests  of  school  children 
and  call  forth  their  individualities  in  terms  of  interests,  desires,  and 
abilities.  They  will  call  forth  and  demonstrate  in  varying  degrees  the 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  35 

particular  aptitudes  involved  and  necessary  in  numerous  industrial 
groups  and  thus  lead  to  a  more  rational  understanding  of  the  principles 
underlying  vocational  guidance.  One  aim  of  a  curriculum,  constituted 
in  the  words  of  Mr.  Lovejoy,  so  as  to  be  "shot  through  with  vocational 
interpretation,"  is  to  widen  the  opportunities  for  careful  and  intelligent 
vocational  guidance. 

The  purpose  of  a  course  of  study  is  to  be  a  medium  of  education. 
It  is  not  designed  to  yield  a  certain  mass  of  information  to  be  crammed 
into  the  brain,  but  to  supply  the  instruments  with  which  to  draw  out 
of  the  brain  the  immense  social  possibilities  it  contains.  The  child 
itself  is  the  object  of  education,  and  the  curriculum  should  be  an  ever 
evolving  nucleus  to  determine  an  increasing  opportunity  for  self-develop- 
ment. 

The  proper  balance  of  topics  in  the  school  curriculum  varies  so 
in  cities  and  indeed  in  different  sections  of  the  same  city  that  the  flexible 
curriculum  should  be  largely  influenced  by  the  suggestions  and  advice 
of  the  particular  groups  of  educators  most  familiar  with  their  local 
problems.  This,  however,  does  not  militate  against  the  establishment 
of  a  minimum  course  of  study  with  a  maximum  expression  of  the  theories 
of  instruction.  This  will  enable  teachers,  now  unprepared,  properly 
to  interpret  the  school  curriculum  so  as  to  afford  to  the  pupils  the  vo- 
cational information  necessary  for  their  further  self-development  and 
self -revelation.  To  this  extent  the  school  curriculum  is  a  most  im- 
portant factor  in  vocational  guidance. 

The  result  of  a  differentiated  elementary  school  curriculum  as 
thus  outlined  should  be  to  prepare  a  child  more  adequately  to  enter 
upon  the  next  stage  in  his  life's  work.  It  should  not  result  in  fitting  a 
child  to  take  up  just  one  job,  regardless  of  his  future.  The  true  relation 
of  the  curriculum  to  vocational  guidance  is  to  call  forth  from  the  child 
a  response  which  will  represent,  in  part  at  least,  his  normal  re-action 
to  his  environment.  It  should  afford  an  opportunity  for  the  child, 
the  teachers,  and  the  parents  to  have  a  greater  appreciation  of  the  innate 
abilities  of  the  child,  together  with  an  appreciation  of  his  possibilities 
for  future  service  to  the  community. 

The  school  curriculum,  the  child  and  industry  are  three  important 
factors  in  vocational  guidance.  Regarding  industry  as  a  variable,  the 
child  certainly  as  a  variable,  it  is  obvious  that  the  curriculum  itself 
must  be  deemed  a  variable  in  order  to  fit  these  constantly  changing 
factors  into  more  or  less  harmonious  adjustment.  Perfection  in  curri- 
culum making  has  not  been  achieved,  nor  is  it  ever  likely  to  be.  It  is 
patent,  however,  that  a  conscientious  consideration  of  the  needs  of  com- 
munities will  lead  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  obligations  resting 
upon  the  school  system  for  the  closer  adjustment  of  the  school  curriculum 
to  the  needs  of  the  community.  This  end  involves  the  application  of 
more  vocational  content  and  interpretation  in  school  curricula.  Herein 
is  to  be  found  an  opportunity  for  basic  study  of  vocational  guidance. 


C. — Vocational  Guidance  and  Social  Welfare 


THE  PROBLEMS  OF  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  IN  THE 

SOUTH 

DAVID  SPENCE  HILL,  PH.  D. 

DIRECTOR  DIVISION  OF  EDUCATIONAL  RESEARCH,  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS, 
NEW  ORLEANS 

Whether  we  discuss  vocational  guidance  in  the  North  or  the  South, 
in  the  East  or  the  West,  there  lies  at  bottom  the  matter  of  human  labor, 
drudgery  and  work.  To  attack  the  problems  of  vocational  guidance 
in  the  South  demands  consideration,  first  of  all,  of  the  essential  facts 
regarding  human  capacity  for  work  and  vocation.  We  may  then  inquire 
into  what  is  being  done  in  the  effort  to  organize  the  vocational  guidance 
of  youth,  and,  lastly,  we  shall  propose  several  topics  for  emphasis  with 
regard  to  the  extension  of  organized  vocational  guidance  in  the  South. 

Work  today  is  distinguished  from  mere  drudgery  and  toil.  Drudgery 
is  more  familiar  than  work  to  millions  of  mankind  because  of  their  lack 
of  opportunity,  or  lack  of  physical  well-being,  or  because  of  mental 
arrest,  or  on  account  of  mal-adjustment  of  individual  and  of  activity. 
Ingredients  of  drudgery  are  too  long  hours,  uninteresting  tasks,  unpleas- 
ant supervision.  Work,  at  its  best  in  human  life  is  something  more  than 
the  mechanical  conversion  of  energy  such  as  motion  of  wheels  into  heat 
or  light  or  electricity.  Work  means  effort,  conscious  movement  directed 
toward  a  remote  goal.  It  is  not  more  painful  movement  or  is  it  an 
incessant  insect-like  being-busy  that  accomplishes  little.  Work  at  its 
best  is  not  only  purposeful  activity  directed  to  a  future  end,  it  is  also 
activity  tinctured  with  the  spirit  of  play,  and  perhaps  in  the  course  of 
evolution  both  the  physical  and  mental  bases  of  work  and  play  have  a 
common  development,  as  for  example,  in  the  inborn  tendency  to  con- 
structiveness.  This  instinct  of  constructiveness  has  later  develop- 
ments both  in  the  make-believe  creations  of  childish  hands  and  also 
in  the  production  of  things  of  value — houses,  bridges,  ships,  which  are 
largely  too  the  product  of  economic  pressure.  The  rich  results  of  the 
work  of  the  creative  artist,  or  inventor,  or  statesman  come  through 
prodigious  activities  and  in  these  play  and  work  have  blended. 

Experimental,  genetic,  pedagogical  and  social  studies  of  work, 
physical  and  mental,  recently  have  made  clearer  the  meanings  and  sig- 
nificance of  drudgery,  toil,  fatigue  and  of  play.  We  know  that  work, 
defined  as  conscious  effort  toward  a  future  reward,  has  uniformities 
in  process,  and  a  knowledge  of  these  uniformities  gives  us  control,  a 
result  that  is  the  ultimate  end  of  many  sciences.  In  efficient  work  there 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  37 

is  always  mental  concentration,  pleasurable  interest,  organization  of 
details,  elimination  of  non-essential  movements.  Work,  with  sufficient 
repetition  and  with  sufficient  intensity,  tends  to  become  more  accurate, 
more  speedy,  less  conscious,  thus  with  every  achievement  equipping 
the  organism  for  more  and  better  work.  The  curve  of  progress  in  work 
has  been  plotted,  the  plateau  of  temporary  halting — that  abyss  of  failure 
to  the  untrained  worker — the  effects,  generalized  or  specialized,  of 
practice  have  been  tabulated,  the  relative  advantages  of  short  and  long 
periods  at  work,  of  different  distributions  of  rest  and  activity — finally, 
the  physical  and  mental  factors  and  effects  of  excessive  fatigue — all 
these  topics  suggest  phases  of  work  under  systematic  investigation 
today,  even  if  not  yet  completely  understood. 

Vocation  should  mean  life-work  and  nothing  less.  Life-work 
ideally  is  the  actual  adjustment  of  the  individual  through  education 
meeting  opportunity.  They  who  undertake  that  new  aspect  of  con- 
scious evolution — organized  vocational  guidance — therefore  are  super- 
ficial in  method  if  they  do  not  understandingly  unravel  the  tangle  of 
inter-dependent  factors  that  determine  the  career  of  boys  and  girls, 
opportunity  must  be  known,  sifted,  exhibited;  this  means  a  knowledge 
of  economic  and  social  conditions,  of  the  status  of  local  industries,  com- 
merce, trades,  professions,  occupations.  The  individual  must  be 
known;  this  does  not  imply  a  mere  knowledge  of  that  non-existent 
phantom,  the  "average  boy  or  girl"  portrayed  in  textbooks  on  psychology, 
it  is  a  demand  that  we  be  able  to  know  the  individual  by  a  method  more 
sure  than  casual  observation,  phrenological  chicanery  or  physiognomic 
delusion.  In  the  study  of  individuals  will  be  encountered  also  the 
complex  factor  of  personal  choice — an  inevitable  presence  in  all  fitting 
of  human  beings  into  appropriate  grooves  or  grooves  to  fit  human  beings. 
These  references  to  the  nature  and  complexity  of  work  and  vo- 
cation considered  as  human  capacities  of  superlative  value  prepare  us 
to  consider  some  specific  observations  that  bear  directly  upon  the  problem 
of  vocational  guidance  in  the  South.  First,  what  is  being  done  about 
organized  vocational  guidance  in  the  South?  In  order  to  obtain  the 
answer  to  this  question  our  Division  of  Educational  Research  sent  the 
following  letter  to  the  superintendent  of  schools  in  Southern  cities  and 
towns: 

"DEAR  SIR: 

The  problem  of  vocational  guidance  doubtless  is  an  issue 
that  is  becoming  more  urgent  in  the  educational  work  of  our 
Southern  cities.  So  far  as  I  know  there  is  no  definite  organi- 
zation or  bureau  for  vocational  guidance  in  any  city  of  the  South. 
In  studying  this  matter,  however,  I  am  taking  the  pains  to  make 
inquiry,  and  I  am  therefore  writing  this  letter  to  the  superin- 
tendents of  schools  in  the  chief  cities  of  the  South. 
Will  you  kindly  answer  the  following  questions? 
1.  Do  you  know  of  any  definite  effort  undertaken  by  com- 
petent persons  in  your  city  to  organize  a  bureau  or  department 
for  the  vocational  guidance  of  boys  and  girls?  If  so,  please 


38  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

send  us  complete  information  as  possible  concerning  the  history 
of  this  organization. 

2.     Please  write  your  opinion  concerning  the  values,  local 
difficulties,  and  probable  outcome  of  the  vocational  guidance 
movement  in  your  city,  if  such  a  movement  is  on  foot.     What 
will  be  the  best  kind  of  provision  of  this  kind  for  the  South? 
Your  kind  attention  and  co-operation  will  be  appreciated. 
I  am, 

Sincerely  yours,  «* 

DAVID  SPENCE  HILL, 

Director." 

This  letter  was  mailed  to  forty-one  superintendents  in  these  cities 
of  fourteen  states:  ALABAMA:  Birmingham,  Mobile.  ARKANSAS:  Little 
Rock.  FLORIDA:  Jacksonville,  Pensacola,  Tampa.  GEORGIA:  Atlanta, 
Columbus,  Macon,  Savannah.  KENTUCKY:  Covington,  Lexington, 
Louisville,  Paducah.  LOUISIANA:  Baton  Rouge,  Shreveport.  MARY- 
LAND: Baltimore.  MISSISSIPPI:  Jackson,  Meridian,  Vicksburg.  NORTH 
CAROLINA:  Charlotte,  Raleigh,  Wilmington.  OKLAHOMA:  Oklahoma 
City.  SOUTH  CAROLINA:  Charleston,  Columbia,  Greenville,  Spartan- 
burg.  TENNESSEE:  Chattanooga,  Memphis,  Nashville.  TEXAS:  Austin, 
Dallas,  Fort  Worth,  Houston,  San  Antonio.  VIRGINIA:  Lynchburg, 
Norfolk,  Portsmouth,  Richmond,  Roanoke. 

So  far  as  revealing  any  considerable  interest  in  the  movement  for 
organized  vocational  guidance,  the  results  of  this  questionaire  are  almost 
negative.  Of  the  forty-one  superintendents  addressed  replies  were 
received  from  fourteen,  distributed  in:  Richmond,  Lynchburg  and 
Norfolk,  Virginia;  Charleston,  S.  C.;  Raleigh,  N.  C.;  Baltimore,  Md.; 
Mobile  and  Montgomery,  Ala.;  Meridan,  Miss.;  Columbus,  Ga.; 
Columbia,  S.  C.;  Birmingham,  Ala.;  Little  Rock,  Arkansas;  Houston, 
Texas — not  including  New  Orleans,  La. 

Of  the  fourteen  replying  twelve  indicated  that  no  definite  effort 
is  being  undertaken  in  their  respective  cities  to  organize  a  bureau,  depart- 
ment or  division  of  vocational  guidance.  One  cannot  speak  definitely 
of  those  cities  from  which  no  reply  was  received,  but  it  is  not  likely 
that  the  movement  has  taken  root  in  any  city  of  the  South  except  in 
two  or  three  instances.  Interest  in  the  movement  for  organized  vo- 
cational guidance  or  some  local  study  of  the  problem  was  indicated 
in  Birmingham,  Little  Rock,  Houston  and  New  Orleans.  In  one  instance 
lack  of  adequate  compulsory  attendance  laws  and  in  another  low  finances 
were  cited  as  obstacles  to  consideration  of  the  matter. 

Superintendent  Phillips  of  Birmingham  reports  a  Committee  on 
Vocational  Guidance.  This  Committee  has  been  quite  active  and  has 
accomplished  results  in  securing  information  and  data  regarding  local 
conditions  of  employment  and  in  the  directing  of  young  people  in  the 
schools  with  regard  to  the  selection  of  life  vocations.  "I  regard  the 
work  of  this  Committee  as  exceedingly  valuable,"  writes  the  Superin- 
tendent, "not  simply  in  the  way  of  securing  information  but  in  the 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  39 

practical  assistance  it  has  afforded  hundreds  of  young  people  whose 
work  in  school,  whose  choice  of  studies  and  future  life-work  have  been 
determined  after  serious  consideration  and  consultation."  Another 
important  committee  in  Birmingham  is  a  Committee  on  Vocational 
Education  representing  the  United  States  Chamber  of  Commerce.  This 
Committee  has  held  meetings  in  conjunction  with  the  Vocational  Guid- 
.  ance  Committee  of  The  Public  Schools.  Superintendent  Horn,  of 
Houston,  Texas,  writes: 

"I  have  always  believed  theoretically  in  the  idea  of  voca- 
tional guidance,  but  I  have  never  felt  quite  sure  that  the  work 
has  been  so  developed,  up  to  the  present,  as  to  make  it  par- 
ticularly valuable.  In  other  words,  we  have  been  waiting  for 
you,  and  some  other  gentlemen,  to  do  a  little  more  experi- 
menting before  our  own  city  goes  into  it.  I  am  interested  in 
the  subject,  however,  and  should  be  glad  to  know  anything  that 
may  be  of  value  as  to  results  obtained." 
Superintendent  R.  C.  Hall,  Little  Rock,  Arkansas,  writes: 

"We  are  studying  the  question  thoroughly  and  shall  be 
ready  to  make  some  recommendations  later." 
In   New   Orleans,   no  separate  bureau   exists  for  vocational  guid- 
ance.    Definite  preliminary  work  has  been  done,  however,  in  five  par- 
ticulars under  the  auspices  of  the  public  school  system  and  by  civic 
organizations.     Since  New  Orleans  is  the  largest  city  of  the  South,  a 
somewhat  detailed  consideration  may  prove  interesting. 

(1).  The  Nicholls  Industrial  School  for  Girls  recently 
organized  in  New  Orleans,  during  its  first  year  undertook, 
through  the  efforts  of  the  Principal,  Miss  Rita  Johnson,  to 
inform,  encourage,  and  attract  girls  in  the  grades  who  had  ex- 
pressed a  desire  to  go  to  the  vocational  school  or  who  were 
about  to  depart.  This  industrial  school  effected  this  beginning 
by  means  of  (a)  form  letters,  (b)  a  special  committee  to  give 
information  and  advice,  and  (c)  by  bringing  groups  of  girls  to 
observe  the  work  of  the  vocational  school. 

(2)  In  New  Orleans  the  Young  Woman's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation has  recently  published  a  booklet  containing  considerable 
information  about  certain  occupations  of  women  in  New  Orleans 
— a  book  intended  to  help  young  women  to  suitable  occupations. 
(3).  The  Consumers'  League  also  has  gathered  data  con- 
cerning the  pay-rolls,  hours  of  labor,  etc.,  of  girls  and  women 
in  New  Orleans  which  it  is  intended  to  publish  for  local  use. 
(4).  Within  the  Division  of  Educational  Research,  Public 
Schools,  for  two  years  a  system  of  systematic  study  of  except- 
ional children  has  been  carried  on  successfully.  This  co-oper- 
ative method  of  studying  children  at  the  request  of  parents  has 
been  accomplished  through  the  systematic  co-operation  of 
teacher,  psychologist,  physician  and  social  worker.  Data  ob- 
tained from  these  four  sources  are  collected  for  each  child  studied. 


40  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

So  far  this  laboratory  method  has  been  applied  chiefly  to  ex- 
ceptional children  in  an  effort  to  determine  their  capacity  for 
education  and  possible  aptitudes  for  vocations. 

(5) .  Finally,  during  the  past  week  in  New  Orleans  an  or- 
ganized effort  has  been  made  by  Superintendent  Gwinn  co-oper- 
ating with  the  Division  of  Educational  Research,  to  obtain 
information  and  to  enlist  the  co-operation  of  parents  of  more 
than  ten  thousand  children  thirteen  years  of  age  and  over. 
The  forms  used  for  this  purpose,  besides  space  for  the  conven- 
tional data  regarding  age,  grade,  etc.,  gain  from  ten  thousand 
parents  the  answer  to  such  questions  as:  occupation,  if  any, 
in  view  for  the  boy  or  girl;  what  the  boy  or  girl  wants  to  do  or 
be;  training,  if  any,  already  received  for  the  occupation;  inten- 
tion of  parent  to  send  boy  or  girl  to  high  school,  college,  indus- 
trial school,  normal  school,  etc.  There  are  four  forms,  two  for 
the  elementary  schools  and  two  for  the  high  schools.  The 
data  thus  obtained  are  to  be  used  not  only  for  analysis  and  com- 
parisons but  also  in  the  case  of  each  school,  as  the  basis  of 
conferences,  talks  on  vocation  by  the  superintendents  and 
selected  speakers  from  various  occupations. 

In  addition  to  this  a  renewed  effort  is  being  made  to  study 
the  conditions  involving  each  and  every  withdrawal  from 
school  for  any  cause.  To  this  latter  end,  Miss  Mary  Rail'ey, 
a  trained  social  investigator  has  been  employed  within  the 
Division  of  Educational  Research.  For  the  high  schools  per- 
sonal visitations  are  being  made  to  homes  to  secure  data  con- 
cerning each  individual  eliminated.  For  the  elementary 
schools  a  special  questionnaire  is  being  used. 

All  these  efforts,  it  is  hoped  will  be  co-ordinated  usefully 
with  the  results  of  the  vocational   survey  now  being  made  in 
New  Orleans  for  the  Isaac  Delgado  Central  Trades  School  for 
the  establishment  of  which  about  one  million  dollars  are  avail- 
able.    Included  in  the  final  report  of  this  survey  will  be  data 
concerning  all  of  the  chief  occupations  open  to  boys  in  New 
Orleans.     This  phase  of  the  report  will  constitute  a  basis  for 
informational  work  in  future  vocational  guidance. 
We  may  now  venture  to  state  candidly  some  groups  of  important 
facts  relevant  to  the  inauguration  of  any  complete  organizations  for 
vocational  guidance  of  youth  in  the  South — whether  such  organizations 
are  maintained  by  the  state,  the  city,  the  school  board  or  by  private 
philanthropy.     We  refer  to  the  following  matters: 

FIRST:     SPECIAL    PHYSICAL,     SOCIAL    AND    ECONOMIC    CONDITIONS 
FOUND  IN  MOST  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  STATES  CANNOT  BE  SAFELY  IGNORED 

BY   CONSTRUCTIVE   SOCIAL   AND  EDUCATIONAL  WORKERS.       We  refer  to   the 

semi-tropical  climate,  the  varied  topography  and  also  to  the  historical 
perspective,  the  population,  the  presence  of  millions  of  the  negro  race, 
the  predominating  occupational  tendencies,  etc. 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  41 

In  the  South  objective  opportunity  is  complicated  by  unique  business 
and  social  conditions.  New  England,  the  West  Coast,  of  course,  also 
present  unique  conditions,  but  that  large  expanse  of  country  called 
the  South  presents  certain  obvious  characteristics  that  are  singularly 
common  to  the  vast  majority  of  its  area  and  citizenship.  Each  com- 
munity, however,  will  always  have  its  special  economic  and  social  prob- 
lems, and  these  demand  provision  for  local  investigations.  For  example: 
It  has  not  been  much  of  a  problem  with  us  to  assimilate  great  numbers 
of  immigrants.  According  to  the  1914  edition  of  the  United  States 
Census  (Abstract — p.  89)  in  Mississippi,  Virginia,  Louisiana,  Arkansas, 
and  Texas,  North  and  South  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Georgia,  and  Ala- 
bama the  percents  of  the  white  population  which  are  of  American 
.parentage  range  from  81  to  99  per  cent.  Massachusetts  exhibits  33 
per  cent  of  native  American  parentage,  New  York  36  per  cent,  Penn- 
sylvania 56.5  per  cent,  Illinois  47  per  cent.  Oregon  64  per  cent,  Cali- 
fornia 49  per  cent.  These  contrasts  alone  indicate  that,  first  of  all, 
we  have  in  the  South  to  deal  with  a  predominating  race  in  point  of 
time  longer  imbued  with  American  ideals  and  habits  than  the  people  of 
most  of  the  other  sections  of  the  country.  Therefore  the  South  may 
be  expected  to  exhibit  a  momentum  of  custom  which  will  prevent  rapid 
innovations  in  education  or  vocation,  whether  imported  from  Europe 
or  elsewhere. 

Immigration  of  the  white  races  to  the  South  has  been  slow.  More- 
over, there  are  present  in  the  South  87  per  cent  of  all  the  negroes  in 
the  United  States,  millions  of  negroes  who  constitute  a  large  fraction 
of  the  local  populations,  whose  bringing  here  was  clouded  with  injustice 
and  disaster.  The  presence  of  these  negroes,  aside  from  the  vicious 
agitations  aroused  by  a  minority  of  white  persons  both  in  the  North 
and  the  South,  has  always  been  and  remains  today  a  source  of  con- 
fusion, a  factor  in  morbidity  and  mortality  and  of  pedagogical  and 
social  difficulty.  That  state,  city  or  town  of  white  population  which 
knows  this  race  question  as  viewed  only  by  observing  the  life  of  a  small 
group  of  negroes  does  not  comprehend  the  magnitude  of  the  necessary 
problem  weighing  daily  upon  the  white  and  colored  people  of  the  South. 
It  is  a  source  of  felicitation  to  both  the  white  and  the  negro  races,  in 
the  South  in  particular,  that  relatively  little  of  disorder,  of  friction, 
that  so  much  of  mutual  co-operation  and  helpfulness  exist  when  every 
day  so  many  millions  of  negroes  are  crossing  and  re-crossing  the  path 
of  the  ascendant  white  race.  The  successful  struggle  of  the  negroes 
in  winning  place  in  the  vocations  of  life,  in  gaining  financial  independ- 
ence and  improving  sanitation — all  against  difficulties  and  in  many 
instances  under  pathetic  conditions,  has  the  approval,  the  sympathy 
and  the  assistance  of  the  white  race  of  the  South.  Nevertheless,  the 
questions  of  vocational  opportunities,  guidance  and  choice  are  deeply 
complicated  by  the  presence  of  this  alien  race.  In  the  South  training 
for  vocation,  providing  opportunities  for  vocation,  guiding  the  young 
away  from  incompetence,  shiftlessness,  unhealthful,  vicious  and  hope- 
less occupations  into  efficiency,  energy,  social  service  and  individual 


42  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

realization,  all  these  present  two  nearly  separate  groups  of  problems. 
This  two-fold  problem  makes  difficult,  although  by  no  means  renders 
hopeless,  the  situation  in  the  South. 

In  the  cities  of  the  South  the  industries  of  manufacture  and  transpor- 
tation now  grow.  Professional  service,  medicine,  law,  the  ministry,  teach- 
ing, engineering,  also  invite  with  large  opportunity  and  higher  standards. 
But  the  South  so  far  is  predominantly  an  agricultural  region  with  here 
and  there  large  mining  activities  and  no  inconsiderable  fisheries.  The 
cultivation  of  cotton,  of  sugar  cane,  the  lumber  industry,  the  extraction 
of  coal,  iron,  salt,  sulphur  and  crude  oil,  the  fisheries  of  Louisiana,  Florida, 
Alabama,  besides  the  growth  of  cereals  and  food  products  occupy  the 
majority  of  our  population,  white  and  black,  Most  of  the  workers 
in  these  occupations  need  a  general  education,  knowledge  and  habit- 
ation of  hygiene  more  than  specialized  training  for  a  trade  or  guid- 
ance thereto.  Newcomers  of  brain  and  enterprise  as  leaders  are  helping 
our  leaders  to  resuscitate  and  to  establish  industries,  and  these  furnish 
varied  and  enlarging  opportunities  in  the  manufacturing  and  mechanical 
pursuits  of  our  cities. 

In  the  night  schools  of  New  Orleans,  the  1,500  boys  and  young 
men  represent  two  hundred  occupations  and  it  is  observed  that  here, 
as  elsewhere,  there  is  a  tendency  to  fall  into  commercial  occupations, 
as  messenger  and  office  boys,  clerks,  etc.,  and  to  miss  more  independent 
and  developmental  vocations  in  the  mechanical  trades.  This  tendency 
toward  the  "white-shirt  and  clean  hands  jobs"  is  disastrous  when  it 
is  inculcated  in  the  negro  in  his  present  stage  of  restricted  opportunity, 
and  is  unwholesome  to  thousands  of  white  youth  both  for  individual 
and  social  reasons.  The  tendency  in  our  cities  for  boys  not  to  enter 
mechanical,  manufacturing  or  building  trades  is  favored  by  four  factors: 

A.  The  absence  of  adequate  apprenticeship  and  the  lack  of  good 
industrial  and  trades  schools.  B.  The  predominance  of  unskilled 
labor  in  newly  acquired  factories  which  is  inevitably  low  or  middle 
grade  machine  operatives.  These  machine  processes  are  utilizing  young 
girls  as  operatives  more  and  more,  offer  inadequate  remuneration  to 
men  and  are  consequently  shunned  by  boys  and  men  of  capacity  in 
favor  of  the  clerkship.  C.  The  stable  nature  of  the  population,  so 
far  as  boys  are  influenced  by  the  occupations  of  fathers,  is  a  factor  in 
leading  the  city  boy  into  few  modern  occupations  requiring  new  skill 
and  knowledge.  In  children  of  New  Orleans  59  per  cent  of  the  fathers 
of  thirteen-year-old  boys  and  86  per  cent  of  the  boys  themselves  are 
living  in  the  city  of  their  birth.  D.  The  indirect  influence  of  the  old- 
type  elementary  school,  academy  and  high  school  and  college  which  in 
the  South  perhaps  more  than  in  the  North  remains  under  the  control 
of  teachers  of  the  classical  ring  in  education. 

SECOND:  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  OF  A  VERY  REAL  KIND  HAS  LONG 
BEEN  IN  OPERATION  IN  THE  SOUTH  AND  THE  BEST  ELEMENTS  OF  THIS 
GUIDANCE  MUST  BE  CONSERVED.  It  is  the  rapidly  changing  industrial 
and  occupational  condition  and  growth  of  population  that  demands  a 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION         .        43 

new  organization.  The  genius  of  the  South  has  always  been  for  home- 
making.  Apartment,  hotel  and  tenement  house  life  are  innovations. 
The  plantation  home,  the  cabin  and  plot  of  ground  of  the  slave,  the 
city  mansion  or  the  humble  cottage  are  all  symbols  of  home  life.  Home, 
neighborhood,  church  and  school  associations  have  been  and  are  potent 
factors  in  guiding  the  choice  and  opening  opportunity  for  youth  in  the 
South.  When  such  influences  are  intelligent  and  able  to  make  mental 
adjustment  with  the  times,  they  embody  the  strongest  types  of  personal 
appeal  in  vocational  guidance.  This  note  is  perhaps  sounded  by  Super- 
intendent Chandler  of  Richmond,  who  writes: 

"I  do  not  believe  in  the  vocational  guidance  movement 
other  than  as  it  works  itself  out  in  the  schools  for  definite  work 
and  the  schools  working  to  place  these  pupils." 
And  again  by  Superintendent  Dobie  of  Norfolk: 

"When  pupils  are  graduated  from  the  seventh  grade  of  our 
elementary  schools  and  are  prepared  to  enter  the  high  schools 
we  offer  them  some  five  courses  and  endeavor  to  advise,  direct, 
or  assist  them  in  making  a  choice  suitable  to  their  needs  as  to  the 
course  of  study  in  the  high  school,  learning  as  far  as  we  can  what 
they  propose  to  do  in  life,  and  trying  to  prepare  them,  in  this 
way,  for  it." 

With  the  recognition  of  the  necessity  of  some  kind  of  definite  efforts 
at  vocational  guidance  throughout  the  country,  certain  dangers  are 
apparent  in  the  movement.  In  the  first  place  there  are  quacks  not 
remote  in  principles  and  practice  from  phrenologists,  astrologers  and 
fortune  tellers.  More  reliable,  but  not  good  leaders,  are  the  illuminists, 
who  really  understanding  by  investigation,  something  of  the  problems 
and  methods  of  good,  organized  guidance,  nevertheless  almost  un- 
consciously come  to  pose  as  self-authorized  authorities,  speaking  ex 
cathedra.  Then  there  are  the  job-seekers,  who,  collecting  bundles 
of  questionnaires,  card  indices,  and  notes  at  six  weeks'  summer  schools, 
return  to  the  grade  or  high  school  work  of  the  local  community,  presently 
to  appear  as  "lecturers"  and  even  "specialists"  and  prospective  di- 
rectors and  counselors  for  a  local  bureau. 

It  is  indeed  a  difficult  matter  either  for  an  individual  or  an  organ- 
ization to  guide  human  beings  successfully  into  their  life  work,  so  mani- 
fold and  elusive  are  individual  differences,  so  spotted  with  shoals  are 
economic  opportunities,  so  inadequate  our  expensive,  slow-moving 
educational  machine — and  so  ignorant  are  we  of  human  nature.  It 
is  a  delusion  to  believe  because  a  proposition  seems  logical  that  the 
conclusion  will  prove  satisfactory  when  applied  to  the  individual  human 
organism.  It  is  a  question  whether  theoretical,  defective  vocational 
guidance  is  harmful  or  worse  than  no  guidance  at  all.  On  the  other 
hand,  our  leaders  and  our  efficient  workers,  many  of  them,  have  found 
their  life  work  through  the  school  of  unchosen  experience,  that  costliest 
of  schools  in  which  the  survivors  are  a  handful  as  compared  with  the 
multitudes  who  have  succumbed  to  its  curriculum.  The  waste  of  poten- 
tial human  productiveness,  the  presence  of  poverty,  the  absence  of  skill 


44  NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION 

and  knowledge  in  industry,  the  pretense  in  the  professions,  the  misfits, 
and  the  wreckage  of  hopes,  ambitions  and  love  itself — some  of  these  of 
late  may  be  charged  to  the  lack  of  organized  vocational  guidance,  a 
necessity  evoked  by  the  complexity  of  our  present  civilization. 


PART-TIME  SECONDARY  SCHOOLING  AND  VOCATIONAL 

GUIDANCE 

DR.  PHILANDER  P.  CLAXTON 
UNITED  STATES  COMMISSIONER  OF  EDUCATION 

We  are  all  becoming  more  and  more  conscious  of  the  fact  that  if 
every  individual  in  our  society  could  find  his  or  her  work  at  which  he 
or  she  would  be  most  content,  and  where  he  or  she  could  render  the 
best  service,  producing  with  a  given  outlay  or  investment  of  capital 
of  time  and  labor,  strength  and  influence,  the  largest  possible  return, 
that  it  would  be  best  for  the  individual  and  for  all  society;  and  that 
wherever  any  individual  misses  his  or  her  particular  work,  the  one 
thing  which  he  or  she  might  accomplish  most,  then  that  individual  lives 
less  happily,  and  will  accomplish  less  in  the  world  for  his  or  her  own 
good,  and  for  the  commonwealth. 

I  said  we  are  beginning  to  become  conscious  of  it,  but  others  have 
surmised  the  same  thing.  The  question  of  vocational  guidance,  as  has 
just  been  said,  is  not  a  new  one.  Probably  the  most  thorough-going 
treatise  on  it  ever  written  was  by  one  Plato  who  lived  in  the  village  of 
Athens  some  twenty-five  hundred  years  ago,  or  thereabouts,  In  his 
Republic  he  devised  a  plan  and  set  it  forth  in  great  detail,  by  which  the 
children  born  to  the  state,  belonging  to  the  state  and  not  to  the  indi- 
vidual parents,  might  all  find  their  place,  the  thing  for  which  they  were 
best  fitted — those  who  were  fitted  to  be  tradesmen  might  leave  the 
schools  after  the  schools  and  their  teachers  should  find  they  were  fitted 
only  for  tradesmen;  that  those  who  had  the  desire  for  making  money, 
with  a  certain  kind  of  greed  for  reputation  without  due  regard  for  the 
truth  might  be  made  into  merchants;  and  those  who  had  certain  great 
courage,  were  careless  of  life,  and  more  or  less  fearless,  might  become  the 
defenders  of  the  state  and  be  trained  therefore  as  soldiers,  and  certain 
others  that  would  have  in  just  proportion  all  the  qualities  of  mind — 
thoughtful  and  reflective  minds — might  become  the  rulers  of  this  state, 
might  become  philosophers;  and  those  after  a  good  long  service  to  the 
state,  and  living  to  the  age  of  fifty  years,  and  finding  what  they  could 
do,  and  having  something  to  give,  might  become  the  teachers  and  the 
trainers  of  the  youth. 

I  believe  we  have  no  record  quite  so  good  as  this,  and  there  was 
much  in  it  except  for  one  thing,  which  I  shall  mention  later  on,  that 
Plato  with  all  of  his  thoughtfulness  forgot  (or  rather  had  never  thought 
of)  when  he  wrote  this.  There  was  no  reason  why  he  should.  Those 
most  familiar  with  the  history  of  education  know  that  other  great  edu- 
cators have  had  some  such  idea.  Milton  had  it  in  his  democratic  way 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  45 

in  his  school  of  agriculture — and  above  all  other  things,  a  good  kind  of 
agricultural  school  it  was — where  there  should  be  one  hour  given  every 
day  to  listening  to  the  music  on  the  great  organ  in  the  central  hall  of 
the  agricultural  school,  and  some,  might  thereby  find  that  they  were 
better  adapted  for  other  things  than  agriculture;  but  they  were  to  go 
on  fair  days  through  the  country  and  out  into  the  fields  to  watch  the 
woodmen  at  work  in  the  forest,  and  the  carpenters  at  work  on  the  build- 
ings; and  on  days  when  it  was  not  fair,  into  the  shops  to  watch  the 
workmen  there,  and  they  might  have  a  try  at  it  to  see  the  thing  they 
could  best  do. 

Now,  the  one  thing  that  Plato  forgot,  or  never  thought  of,  was 
that  in  the  United  States  of  America, — in  our  democratic  society,  indus- 
trial democracy,  social  democracy,  political  democracy, — with  our 
Christian  civilization,  that  there  are  at  least  two  vocations  that  belong 
to  all  the  people,  and  for  which  without  as  doubt  every  boy  and  girl 
must  be  prepared,  or  he  or  she  will  not  live  to  as  good  purpose  as  possible, 
will  not  be  as  happy,  and  will  not  contribute  his  or  her  part  to  the  com- 
monwealth, and  the  first  is  the  vocation  of  manhood  or  womanhood. 
Plato  knew  the  little  aristocratic,  democratic  community  which  colored 
into  a  beautiful  civilization  out  of  the  dung-heap  of  festering  humanity 
below  him,  and  he  never  could  conceive  of  that  group  becoming  citizens 
and  taking  part  in  the  government  of  the  people.  It  was  only  the 
choice  ones  here  and  there  that  might  perchance  come  from  that,  but 
they  were  to  be  selected  for  government  in  a  different  kind  of  demo- 
cracy from  that  we  know. 

But  our  fathers  fortunately,  or  unfortunately,  have  thrust  upon  us 
all  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  citizenship,  and  every  man  must 
perform  his  duties,  and  every  woman  must  also  assume  her  responsi- 
bilities; and  if  we  were  able  to  select  in  a  city  like  Boston,  or  Richmond, 
or  New  York,  or  elsewhere,  the  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  boys  and  girls  who  leave  school  at  the  end  of  the  compulsory  attend- 
ance period  at  12  or  13  or  14,  still  in  the  days  of  childhood,  without  the 
power  of  gaining  the  knowledge  and  training  necessary  for  citizenship, 
and  take  their  places  in  our  democratic  society,  and  without  the  possi- 
bility of  getting  the  training  and  getting  the  preparation  which  their 
fathers  did — at  least  a  good  many  of  us  got — in  the  beautiful  and  simple 
and  rich  life  of  the  country  and  the  village — and  these  living  not  in  the 
country  or  village,  but  born  in  the  slums  of  the  city,  and  never  getting 
outside  of  its  community,  and  getting  into  the  schools,  and  getting  into 
the  shops — and  at  21  years  assuming  the  duties  of  citizenship,  it  would 
make  the  ripest  possible  condition  for  the  surest  possible  reason  for  our 
final  failure  as  a  democracy;  so  that  whatever  we  discuss,  whatever 
we  may  make  for  vocational  guidance,  or  finding  the  task,  we  must 
remember  that  all  must  have  the  preparation  to  take  part  in  our  ever- 
growing and  more  complex  democracy  of  government  as  well  as  of 
industrial  life.  This  we  must  be  able  to  give,  and  we  must  be  able 
to  give  to  everyone  a  means  by  which  he  can  really  serve  society,  by 


46  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

which  he  may  be  able  to  contribute  to  society  and  to  the  commonwealth 
as  much  as  he  takes  from  it. 

In  thinking  it  over,  it  has  occurred  to  me  that  the  combination  of 
circumstances  makes  possible  and  demands  one  thing  that  not  many 
of  us  have  dreamed  of  yet,  but  which  I  have  been  bold  enough,  and  bold 
enough  tonight,  to  propose  to  you  as  a  program  for  us  here  in  the  South, 
and  the  North,  and  anywhere  in  these  United  States,  and  that  is  the 
great  body  of  boys  and  girls  of  the  country  and  of  the  city,  all  of  them 
so  far  as  we  can  make  anything  universal,  shall  have  education  through 
the  period  that  we  call  the  high  school  age — shall  have  a  formal  school 
day  through  a  period  of  middle  and  early  adolescence. 

It  would  be  easy  to  show  also  in  this  period  alone  that  it  is  possible 
to  prepare  boys  and  girls  for  the  duties  of  citizenship  in  a  democratic 
state  and  a  democratic  Nation.  Democracy  is  government  by  man- 
hood. It  is  government  not  by  anyone  who  is  born  to  rule  by  divine 
authority,  and  it  cannot  be  in  our  democracy,  which  has  outgrown  all 
its  precedents,  any  kind  of  government  by  imitation  or  by  precedent. 
Every  day  a  new  problem  is  set  for  us,  and  it  requires  self-guidance  on 
the  part  of  the  people.  Self-guidance  requires  understanding,  a  com- 
prehension of  the  fundamental  principles  of  government  and  of  insti- 
tutional life.  This  kind  of  comprehension,  this  kind  of  understanding 
of  great  patriotic  principles  involved  in  institutional  life  cannot  come 
to  children  during  the  period  of  childhood,  before  the  years  of  adoles- 
cence, therefore  if  our  democracy  is  to  continue,  and  we  are  not  to  suffer — 
what  Plato  said  would  be  one  of  the  reasons  why  democracy  should  fail — 
then  we  must  give  instruction  in  citizenship  through  this  period. 

Now,  then,  as  we  must  give  also  some  preparation  for  a  trade, 
some  preparation  for  an  occupation,  and  help  the  child  to  find  its  vo- 
cation, I  believe  this  kind  of  combination  will  bring  the  three  about; 
and  we  are  certainly  able,  in  this  day  of  the  low  cost  of  living,  to  work 
out  a  problem  like  this.  I  said  purposely  "the  low  cost  of  living,"  be- 
cause the  cost  of  living  has  never  been  so  low  in  the  history  of  the  world 
as  it  is  today,  measured  by  the  one  permanent  standard,  that  which  a 
given  amount  of  labor  will  produce.  Never  before  has  a  given  unit  of 
labor — and  it  is  labor  of  intelligence — amounted  so  much  in  quantity, 
as  today.  May  cost  more  money,  and  the  quantity  of  living  and  the 
quality  may  be  higher,  but  a  given  amount  can  be  bought  more  cheaply 
today  than  ever  before.  Therefore,  I  think  we  need  not  say  we  are 
not  able  to  keep  children  in  school,  through  the  adolescent  period.  For 
children  in  our  cities — and  it  is  possible  in  most  of  our  cities;  it  is  easily 
possible  in  our  country  districts — may  by  some  kind  of  industrial  direction, 
not  by  prohibition  of  child  labor,  but  by  the  re-direction  and  wise  direction 
of  child  labor,  help  to  contribute  to  their  support — if  in  the  city,  by  the 
cultivation  in  back-yards,  side-yards,  or  vacant  lots,  of  vegetables  and 
fruits,  they  may  help  to  make  the  support  of  the  family.  If  in  the  subur- 
ban communities  there  may  be  a  larger  amount.  In  the  city  they  may 
find  somethiing  to  work  at,  as  boys  and  girls  did  with  their  parents  only 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  47 

a  generation  or  two  ago,  in  the  home,  and  every  home  then  was  a  factory 
and  workshop,  and  in  the  shop  some  kind  of  apprenticeship  with  simple 
tools;  or  if  the  school  must  provide,  as  some  schools  are  now  trying  to 
provide,  a  means  of  occupation  by  which  children  may  produce  something 
with  the  hands,  not  alone  for  the  training  that  will  come  from  it,  but 
because  of  the  economic  value  of  what  he  has  produced;  then  the  parents 
not  having  to  carry  their  children  as  a  dead  burden  wholly  until  the  time 
of  adolescence,  the  time  when  they  would  leave  the  elementary  school, 
may  be  better  able  to  send  them  in  to  school;  and  then  if  we  may  find 
some  means  by  which  the  schools  can  adjust  themselves  to  the  conditions 
of  the  home  and  of  industrial  life,  and  if  the  industrial  occupations 
will  meet  us  half  way — if  some  arrangement  can  be  made  by  which 
children  may  work  one  week  in  the  shop,  and  one  week  in  the  school, 
or  one  day  in  the  shop  and  one  in  the  school,  or  a  month  in  the  shop  or 
in  the  field  or  wherever  it  may  be,  and  one  in  the  school,  or  half  of  the 
day  in  the  shop,  and  one-half  in  the  school,  and  that  last  would  not  be 
wholly  bad  for  the  schools,  because  a  careful  study  made  of  schools  in  all 
parts  of  the  United  States  has  revealed  the  fact  that  elementary  children 
actually  work  in  the  school,  that  is,  give  their  attention  to  some  part 
of  the  school  work  an  average  of  two  hours  in  the  day,  and  children 
in  the  higher  grammar  grades  an  average  of  three  hours  in  the  day, 
and  in  the  high  school  about  four;  and  if  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  United 
States,  through  the  high-school  period,  work  through  the  high-school 
years,  work  three  hours  a  day  for  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  or 
three  hundred  days,  and  the  remaining  hours,  four  or  five,  at  some  useful, 
purposeful  occupation,  by  which  they  would  contribute  to  their  living, 
they  would  accomplish  more  in  the  schools.  If  that  kind  of  an  arrange- 
ment can  be  brought  about,  if  we  may  have  part  time  school  attend- 
ance and  part  time  work  in  the  shops,  or  in  the  fields,  or  in  the  stores, 
or  wherever  it  may  be,  and  children  through  a  period  of  six  years,  from 
12  to  18 — because  the  high  school  should  begin  at  12,  based  on  six  years 
of  elementary  school — I  am  sure  these  same  children  can  be  watched 
carefully  by  their  teachers  on  the  one  side,  by  their  parents  on  the  other, 
careful  reports  being  required  from  those  with  whom,  and  for  whom, 
they  work,  stating  how  they  did  their  work,  at  what  they  seemed  best 
fitted  to  do,  and  at  the  same  time  the  children  were  required  to  observe 
themselves,  and  occasionally  they  were  talked  to,  and  with,  by  their 
employers,  by  their  teachers,  by  the  superintendent  of  schools,  by  their 
parents,  and  probably  by  the  professional  vocational  guide  for  the  school, 
then  by  the  end  of  the  six  years  it  would  be  quite  easy  to  make  up  clearly 
and  accurately  some  opinion  as  to  what  the  child  would  best  be  fitted 
to  do,  at  what  it  would  be  happiest,  what  its  constitution  and  make-up, 
its  general  knowledge,  fitted  it  for  best. 

I  suspect  most  of  us  who  succeed  in  life  have  passed  a  period  in 
which  we  were  a  "jack  at  all  trades,"  when  we  tried  ourselves  first  at 
one  thing  and  then  another,  and  probably  gained  some  kind  of  skill 
we  found  useful,  and  probably  a  few  of  us  have  really  succeeded  in 
life  at  the  thing  we  thought  we  would  succeed  in. 


48  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

I  happen  to  be  the  father  of  a  number  of  children.  I  have  watched 
them  with  some  degree  of  care,  and  I  am  quite  sure  that  I  have  studied 
the  problem  of  what  children  are  best  fitted  for  at  14  years  of  age,  but 
I  could  not  have  chosen  the  best  occupation  for  any  of  my  own  children. 
I  know  people  who  think  they  can  talk  with  them  half  an  hour  and 
show  them  what  they  can  do.  They  may  be  able  to.  I  could  tell 
them  what  they,  could  not  do  possibly,  and  I  might  determine  the  thing 
which  they  could  best  do  by  the  process  of  elimination;  but  during  this 
period  of  the  high  school  the  teacher  might  constantly  or  occasionally 
give  them  some  idea  of  what  the  various  occupations  require.  They 
do  not  know  what  the  boy  will  be  finally.  They  do  not  know  what  the 
opportunities  in  any  particular  line  are.  They  do  not  know  what  knowl- 
edge is  required  to  succeed  in  any  particular  thing.  They  do  not  know 
how  much  persistence  it  is  going  to  require,  and  a  part  of  the  high-school 
education  of  every  child— and  may  I  say  of  those  who  are  not  going 
into  the  high  school,  if  there  must  be  such,  during  the  last  years  of  the 
grammar  grade,  between  12  and  14 — a  good  part  of  the  work  of  the 
school  and  a  large  part  of  their  course  of  study  ought  to  be  of  the  various 
occupations  which  will  probably  be  open  to  them  in  their  community. 
As  to  what  those  occupations  do  require,  as  to  what  kind  of  qualifications 
are  necessary,  and  how  long  one  must  be  at  them,  what  kind  of  prepar- 
ation is  necessary,  what  they  may  hope  to  accomplish  thereby,  what  will 
be  their  relations  to  society,  how  much  of  the  time  they  will  have  at 
home,  and  all  of  these  things  that  are  necessary  to  enable  one  wisely 
and  carefully  to  choose  the  thing,  not  only  for  the  service  he  may  render, 
but  for  the  joy  he  may  get  out  of  it;  and  one  other  thing  might  go  with 
it,  to  show  the  relation  of  each  of  these  particular  occupations  to  society, 
and  in  which  way  he  can  best  serve  it,  because  no  one  is  likely  to  succeed 
very  well  in  any  occupation  in  the  world,  and  especially  in  the  great 
occupation  of  citizenship  in  life,  who  has  not  early — certainly  in  the 
adolescent  period — formed  a  desire  and  determination  that  he  will  serve 
society  well  and  so  live  that  society  will  be  a  little  bit  better  because 
he  is  living  and  working  in  it. 

Now  I  have  talked  in  a  very  rambling  kind  of  way  of  a  subject 
which  is  much  larger  than  twenty-five  minutes,  and  much  larger  than 
we  can  probably  grasp  at  once,  but  I  have  tried  to  put  it  to  you  as  simply 
and  effectively  as  I  could.  I  believe  we  are  coming  to  it. 

If  time  permitted — it  does  not — I  would  like  to  call  your  attention 
to  the  fact  that  we  have  come  now  in  our  development  in  this  country 
to  the  time  we  can  no  longer  justify  ourselves  in  taxing  all  the  people 
for  the  education  of  the  children,  and  then  selecting  those  who  need 
least  and  giving  them  the  most,  and  those  that  must  perform  the  same 
duties  of  citizenship  and  make  their  own  living,  and  serve  in  society, 
but  have  less  native  ability,  we  will  be  content  to  give  them  less  and 
less  and  let  them  drop  out  of  our  schools  and  away  from  our  influence 
before  the  time  they  can  be  prepared  for  citizenship,  or  for  participation 
in  an  industrial  democracy. 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION.  49 


SOME  ITEMS  TO  BE  CONSIDERED  IN  A  VOCATIONAL 
GUIDANCE  PROGRAM 

JULIA  C.  LATHROP 

CHILDREN'S  BUREAU,  U.  S.  DEPARTMENT  OF  LABOR, 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

I  ought  to  preface  the  few,  somewhat  unrelated,  points  which  I 
wish  to  mention  by  confessing  that  I  am  not  a  teacher,  but  a  looker-on. 
Vocational  guidance  for  child  labor  is  a  grotesque  travesty  that  we 
set  aside.  Vocational  guidance  for  youth  must  assume  great  responsi- 
bility in  a  great  field.  It  must  accept  the  necessity  of  knowing  the 
vocational  opportunities,  of  knowing  their  character  as  to  healthful- 
ness,  suitability  for  youthful  muscles  and  minds,  remuneration,  markets, 
promises  of  development.  It  must  accept  responsibility  for  individual 
study  of  children  with  reference  to  physical  and  mental  aptitudes.  This 
must  be  a  part  of  education  and  no  ex  post  facto  guidance  in  disregard 
of  the  guide's  earlier  knowledge  of  children  individually  is  worthy  of 
our  thought. 

This  is  not  a  task  for  busy  teachers,  or  an  incidental  occupation. 
It  is  the  most  responsible  and  hazardous  task  the  school  has  under- 
taken since  compulsory  education. 

It  requires — what  do  not  exist — standards  for  the  various  occu- 
pations. It  has  been  pointed  out  repeatedly  of  late  that  we  have  almost 
no  scientific  knowledge  of  the  effect  of  various  types  of  industry  upon 
mind  and  muscle.  The  time  has  come  when  these  must  be  secured  if 
the  school  is  to  assume  the  responsibility  of  determining  the  character 
of  the  child's  working  life.  Hence  one  may  expect,  through  vocational 
guidance,  excellent  contributions  to  the  studies  necessary  to  fix  in- 
dustrial standards. 

The  early  vocational  education,  preceding  attempt  at  speciali- 
zation, must  foster  flexibility  and  self-control,  both  of  mind  and  muscle, 
as  the  basis  of  discipline  and  order. 

The  new  schools  must  rise  above  Sir  John  Gorst's  description  of 
English  schools: 

"Our  system  is  to  do  our  best  to  kill  all  the  child's  natural 
gifts,  all  its  .imitation,  all  its  curiosity,  all  its  desire  for  knowl- 
edge. We  do  this  by  putting  it  into  a  class  where  it  is  obliged 
to  sit  still  and  not  allowed  to  speak.  If  it  does  speak,  it  is 
ordered  to  keep  silence  till  it  is  spoken  to." 

In  other  words,  is  it  not  true  that  children  must  be  so  taught  that 
youth  can  be  guided,  not  driven,  and  the  guidance  must  be  based  on 
long  watchfulness?  The  guidance  must  be  such  as  to  give  the  child 
his  head  in  the  end. 

To  my  mind,  the  schools  have  thrown  away  priceless  opportunities 
to  dignify  work  and  to  teach  it.  Thus  the  janitor  is  now  a  tyrant  or 


50  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION. 

a  drudge.  He  should  be  a  teacher.  His  work  could  be  made  to  serve 
all  sorts  of  technical  training  ends.  I  once  visited  a  public  school  in 
the  better  residential  quarter  of  Tokio,  which  the  children  of  professional 
people  attended,  because,  as  we  are  told,  their  parents  wanted  them  to 
have  the  discipline.  In  going  about  we  met  two  nice  lads  with  scrub 
pails — it  was  their  turn  to  keep  a  certain  space  in  order  for  that  week. 
Of  course,  it  would  be  more  trouble  to  have  the  school  children  cook 
and  serve  and  clean  up  the  daily  luncheon  than  it  is  to  have  the  local 
ladies'  club  direct  hired  people,  but  which  would  be  more  educational? 
Ought  there  to  be  one  bit  of  work  about  a  school  not  done  properly 
by  pupils  under  the  guidance  of  expert  teachers? 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  in  general.  There  is  one  special  item  to 
which  I  beg  to  call  attention: 

The  single,  most  important  industrial  interest  in  this  country,  is 
that  of  13,000,000  women  who  are  engaged  in  the  occupation  of  carry- 
ing on  the  households  of  the  country.  As  an  industry  it  is  disorganized, 
feeble  and  ignorant,  yet  its  workers,  as  poets  and  politicians  love  to 
say,  hold  the  destiny  of  the  nation  in  their  hands. 

What  are  we  doing  for  their  guidance,  or  for  their  technical  edu- 
cation? Occupational  guidance  for  girls  must,  in  justice  to  them,  and 
to  the  nation,  be  preceded  and  accompanied  by  training  in  the  richly 
varied  arts  of  the  household,  including  especially  the  art  of  distributing 
and  spending  an  income.  Such  training  may  begin  early,  but  it  cannot 
conclude  until  there  is  some  ripeness  of  judgment. 

I  do  not  mean  to  belittle  Little  Mothers'  classes,  and  cooking  classes, 
and  sewing  classes,  and  other  admirable  little  classes,  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  truth  is,  the  whole  field  of  girls'  training  has  been  singularly 
belittled,  and  the  fault  is  far  more  with  our  colleges  and  universities 
than  with  primary  teaching.  We  must  all  come  to  recognize  the  manifold 
tasks  of  the  head  of  a  household  as  parts  of  a  great  technical  art,  to 
which  the  whole  field  of  science  shall  be  laid  under  tribute.  When  that 
day  comes,  the  girls  of  this  country  will  have,  not  fewer,  but  richer 
opportunities  in  school  and  in  occupation.  We  shall  establish  great 
graduate  technical  schools  as  centers  of  research,  and  sources  of  prac- 
tical training. 

Finally,  let  us  not  depend  too  much  upon  compulsory  education. 
The  most  practical  vocational  education  in  the  world,  I  believe,  is  that 
which  the  United  States  is  carrying  on  in  the  Philippines.  They  have 
no  compulsory  education  laws,  because  they  do  not  need  them,  because 
the  schools  compel  by  offering  education  which  gives  the  boys  and  girls 
a  better  standard  of  life  and  the  skill  with  which  to  secure  that  standard. 
A  continuation  school  that  is  not  able  to  command  the  attendance  of 
boys  and  girls  by  the  merit  of  its  offerings  has  no  excuse  for  existence. 
Compel  employers,  but  let  us  not  take  for  the  school  the  primrose  path 
of  compelling  scholars.  Let  the  school  offer  classes  so  plainly  attractive 
that  they  will  be  besieged  by  those  eager  to  come,  and  they  will  be  so 
beseiged  if  they  can  interpret  and  dignify  life. 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  51 

A  BRIEF  STATEMENT  OF  THE  WORK  OF  THE  VOCATIONAL 

BUREAU  AND  THE  JOINT  COMMITTEE  FOR 

VOCATIONAL  SUPERVISION 

ANNE  S.  DAVIS 

DIRECTOR  OF  THE  BUREAU  OF  VOCATIONAL  SUPERVISION, 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 

ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY  OF  THE  JOINT  COMMITTEE  FOR  VOCATIONAL 

SUPERVISION 

Each  year  in  Chicago  from  fifteen  to  eighteen  thousand  children 
between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  leave  school  to  go  to  work. 
The  vast  majority  enter  low  grade  industries  untrained,  unguided, 
unguarded,  where  they  average  less  than  four  dollars  a  week  while  at 
work,  where  they  shift  from  job  to  job  with  consequent  loss  to  industry 
and  to  themselves. 

It  was  to  prevent  this  waste  that  the  Bureau  of  Vocational  Super- 
vision was  established  in  1911  by  the  Joint  Committee,  organized  by 
the  Chicago  Woman's  Club,  the  Woman's  City  Club  and  the  Associ- 
ation of  Collegiate  Aluminae.  The  committee  grew  rapidly,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  year  numbered  more  than  two  hundred  individual  mem- 
bers and  delegates  from  twenty  clubs.  At  present  the  membership 
list  consists  of  two  hundred  and  thirty-nine  members  and  represent- 
atives from  thirty-one  clubs. 

In  November,  1913,  the  executive  board  was  enlarged  to  include 
representatives  from  the  Vocational  Committee  of  the  City  Club,  the 
Chicago  Association  of  Commerce,  the  Chicago  Woman's  Aid,  and  repre- 
sentatives of  industry. 

In  1911-12  up  to  May  15  there  was  but  one  full-time  worker  em- 
ployed by  the  committee.  At  the  latter  date  another  worker  was  added. 
During  1913-14  the  staff  has  numbered  four  full-time  workers  assisted 
by  volunteers. 

In  March,  1913,  after  two  years  of  experimental  work,  the  Board  of 
Education  took  over  the  Bureau  to  the  extent  of  supplying  an  office 
in  the  Jones  School,  with  clerical  assistance  and  telephone  service. 

WORK  OF  THE  BUREAU 

Two  years  ago  a  boy  of  fourteen  years  graduated  from  the  eighth 
grade  and  secured  his  working  certificate.  He  came  from  a  comfort- 
able home.  He  might  have  gone  to  high  school  had  such  a  plan  been 
suggested  to  his  parents,  who  had  simply  taken  it  for  granted  that  he 
should  go  to  work  after  graduation.  The  boy  wanted  to  learn  a  trade. 
After  several  years  of  searching  he  found  a  job  as  errand  boy  in  a  print- 
ing shop,  at  five  dollars  a  week.  Here  he  thought  he  might  have  a 
chance  to  advance,  but  at  the  end  of  a  week  a  boy  who  had  previously 
worked  there  returned,  and  John  was  dismissed.  The  next  day  he  saw 
a  sign  "Boy  Wanted"  in  the  window  of  a  wholesale  millinery  establish- 
ment. Here  he  ran  errands  and  did  some  packing  and  general  work,  at 


52  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

a  wage  of  four  dollars.  A  boy  with  whom  he  worked  told  him  there 
was  no  chance  there  and  that  he  would  never  earn  more  than  six  dollars, 
so  he  left.  Weeks  of  idleness  followed.  He  next  found  work  in  a  dye- 
ing and  cleaning  establishment  at  four  dollars  and  a  half,  but  left  after 
a  few  weeks  because  he  heard  of  a  better  job  in  a  florist's  shop.  Perhaps 
it  was  a  better  job — he  earned  five  dollars  and  a  half,  but  the  work  was 
temporary,  lasting  only  through  the  rush  season  during  the  holidays. 
When  he  was  discharged  he  went  to  an  engraving  shop,  where  he  earned 
five  dollars  a  week.  One  day  a  man  said  to  him:  "Come  along,  I've 
got  an  office  job  for  you."  The  office  job  consisted  of  running  errands, 
answering  the  telephone  and  sweeping  the  floor  in  a  small  manufactur- 
ing concern.  At  the  end  of  three  weeks  the  firm  moved  out  of  the  city, 
and  the  boy  was  again  on  the  street  looking  for  work.  During  these 
two  years  he  had  received  no  training;  he  had  done  nothing  to  stimu- 
late his  intellect  and  he  was  less  prepared  for  learning  a  trade  than  he 
was  two  years  before. 

This  story  is  typical  of  thousands  of  children  who  leave  school 
today,  and  it  shows  the  problem  which  the  Bureau  of  Vocational  Super- 
vision is  trying  to  meet  by  reaching  these  children  as  they  leave  school, 
by  advising  them,  returning  them  to  school  when  possible — for  there 
are  many  who  need  only  a  little  encouragement  and  there  are  some  who 
need  no  encouragement  but  a  small  scholarship — placing  them  in  posi- 
tions if  that  is  the  best  that  can  be  done  for  them,  and  supervising  them 
after  they  have  been  placed.  The  Bureau's  obligation  to  the  child 
who  must  work  should  not  end  at  fourteen,  but  should  continue  until 
he  is  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  of  age,  for  the  child  who  goes  to  high 
school  is  cared  for  and  protected  until  he  is  eighteen. 

INVESTIGATIONS 

In  undertaking  work  of  this  sort  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  thorough 
investigation  into  opportunities  of  employment  open  to  children,  visit- 
ing the  shop,  the  office,  the  factory,  the  labor  unions,  the  manufactur- 
ing associations,  and  gathering  all  information  possible  from  children 
who  have  already  worked.  It  has  been  found  that  there  are  very  few 
positions  that  offer  even  a  little  training  to  children  under  sixteen  years; 
that  usually  the  only  skill  required  in  any  of  the  work  is  speed;  that 
many  employers  do  not  want  children  under  sixteen  years  of  age  because 
the  law  permits  them  to  work  only  eight  hours  a  day,  and  because  they 
are  so  small  and  unreliable,  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to  bother  with 
them;  that  some  employers  in  the  very  unskilled  work  prefer  children 
of  fourteen  because  their  fingers  are  more  flexible  and  they  can  work 
faster.  Reports  have  shown  that  much  of  the  work  open  to  children 
under  sixteen  is  seasonal;  that  the  children  under  sixteen  are  nearly 
always  the  ones  who  are  laid  off;  that  the  average  child  works  about 
one-half  the  time  during  the  two  years  between  fourteen  and  sixteen, 
and  that  the  average  wage  is  not  more  than  two  dollars  a  week.  For 
this  paltry  sum  these  children  are  giving  up  their  right  to  school-time 
and  play-time,  their  right  to  education  and  training. 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  53 

» 

Since  the  number  of  vocational  supervisors  is  very  small  the  work 
of  the  Bureau  has  been  limited  to  a  selected  number  of  schools.  In 
these  schools  no  child  receives  his  working  papers  unless  he  has  first 
talked  with  the  vocational  supervisor,  and  the  parents  of  the  child  have 
been  seen  at  the  school  or  visited  by  the  supervisor  at  the  home,  and 
an  effort  has  been  made  to  retain  the  child  in  school. 

It  is  found  that  many  parents  are  indifferent,  not  caring  whether 
their  children  are  in  school  or  at  work — as  is  the  case  of  one  mother, 
who  said,  "Mary  might  just  as  well  be  wearing  her  clothes  out  working 
as  going  to  school."  Others  are  ignorant  of  industrial  conditions. 
Still  others  who  can  afford  to  keep  their  children  in  school  take  them  out 
on  t^eir  fourteenth  birthday  because  the  law  gives  them  that  liberty. 
Such  parents  are  accumulating  property  and  the  education  of  their 
children  is  sacrificed  for  a  house  or  lot.  It  takes  so  little  sometimes  to 
return  a  child  to  school,  to  make  the  parents  see  the  advantages  of 
further  education  after  telling  them  of  the  conditions  that  face  the  child 
of  iourteen  who  leaves  school  to  go  to  work. 

In  the  schools  in  which  the  work  is  carried  on,  children  about  to 
graduate  are  advised  regarding  further  training  and  encouraged  to 
continue  their  education.  Talks  are  given  in  the  sixth,  seventh  and 
eighth  grades  emphasizing  the  advantages  of  education  from  a  business 
standpoint,  and  showing  that  the  demand  is  nearly  always  for  boys  or 
girls  over  sixteen  with  at  least  a  grammar  school  education,  and  that 
the  earning  capacity  of  those  who  have  had  a  technical  or  commercial 
training  is  much  greater  than  those  who  have  completed  only  the  eighth 
grade. 

As  the  supervisors  are  able  to  return  to  school  about  twenty-five 
per  cent  of  the  children  who  come  to  them,  it  is  quite  obvious  that  all 
children  leaving  the  elementary  school  should  have  access  to  the  Vo- 
cational Bureau.  One  of  our  principals  always  sends  the  children  in 
her  school  who  ask  for  working  certificates  to  the  Vocational  Bureau 
with  the  result  that  many  children  return  to  the  school  for  further  train- 
ing. One  day  she  asked  a  boy  why  he  had  returned,  and  he  said'.  "The 
lady  you  sent  me  to  said  if  I  wanted  to  work  in  a  bank  I  had  better 
go  to  school  a  while  longer." 

The  following  letter  is  sent  to  the  parents  of  those  children  who 
have  just  left  school  and  have  come  to  the  Central  Bureau  seeking 
employment: 

DEAR  SIR  OR  MADAM: 

Your  (daughter  or  son)  informs  me  that  (she  or  he)  does 
not  expect  to  return  to  school.  There  is  little  chance  for  boys 
or  girls  to  secure  good  work  until  they  are  sixteen  years  of 
age.  The  trades  never  admit  boys  under  sixteen,  and  few 
offices  will  employ  boys  or  girls  so  young. 

As  a  result,  children  who  leave  school  at  fourteen  are 
compelled  to  take  up  factory  or  errand  work.  This  work  may 
offer  a  good  wage  at  the  beginning,  but  it  gives  no  training 


54  NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION 

« 
and  does  not  prepare  the  boy  or  girl  to  earn  a  living  in  later  life. 

Much  of  the  work  open  to  children  is  seasonal,  and  the 
boys  or  girls  are  generally  laid  off  after  a  few  weeks.  The  result 
is  that  the  majority  of  children  work  about  half  the  time  until 
they  are  sixteen.  The  rest  of  the  time  is  spent  in  idleness, 
and  they  are  on  the  streets  where  they  often  get  into  trouble. 
By  the  time  they  are  sixteen  they  have  little  desire  to  work. 
At  the  present  time  there  is  very  little  work  of  any  kind.  For 
months  to  come  children  will  not  be  able  to  find  employment. 
Since  these  are  the  conditions,  we  would  like  to  help  you 
in  urging  your  child  to  continue  in  school  until  she  is  at  least 
.  sixteen  years  of  age.  The  schools  offer  training  which  prepares 
for  work  in  a  trade,  including  dressmaking,  millinery,  etc.,  for 
girls,  and  carpentry,  electrical  and  machine-shop  work,  pattern 
making  and  mechanical  drawing  for  boys,  or  for  office  work, 
including  stenography,  typewriting  and  book-keeping.  Two 
more  years  of  training  will  mean  increased  wages  later. 

We  shall  be  glad  to  talk  with  you  concerning  future  plans 

.     for  your  daughter  or  son  if  you  will  call  at  the  office  of  the 

Bureau  of  Vocational  Supervision  at  the  Jones  School,  Plymouth 

Court  and  Harrison  Street,  any  morning  between  9  and   12 

o'clock. 

Last  summer  a  mother  came  to  the  Bureau  in  response  to  this 
letter.  She  brought  with  her,  her  boy  of  fourteen  who  had  completed 
the  Seventh  Grade  in  school.  He  was  a  bright,  active  boy,  and  the 
mother  was  anxious  for  him  to  remain  in  school.  The  teacher  had 
advised  him  to  leave  school  "because  he  had  too  much  energy."  This 
is  no  criticism  of  the  teacher,  for  she  knew  that  particular  school  did 
not  give  the  child  what  he  needed,  neither  did  she  know  what  industry 
had  to  offer  the  boy. 

The  boy  found  work  in  a  small  office,  where  he  was  alone  the  greater 
part  of  the  day.  His  only  task  was  to  answer  the  telephone  occasion- 
ally. The  mother  said,  "If  that  boy  has  too  much  energy  to  stay  in 
school  he  has  too  much  energy  for  that  job." 

After  a  talk  with  the  boy  it  was  thought  best  to  send  him  to  Lane 
Technical  School.  He  has  made  rapid  progress  and  has  been  allowed 
to  take  some  of  his  work  in  high  school.  He  is  now  planning  to  take 
a  four-year  technical  course. 

PLACEMENT 

But  these  children  need  more  than  advice.  When  the  time  comes 
for  children  to  go  to  work,  when  there  is  no  hope  of  keeping  them  in 
school  longer,  then  they  need  help  in  choosing  a  job  so  as  to  prevent 
the  wastage  that  comes  to  them  and  the  employers  from  their  own 
haphazard  choice.  Given,  on  the  one  hand,  the  knowledge  of  the  child 
gleaned  from  the  home,  the  school  and  the  child  himself,  and  on  the 
other,  the  knowledge  of  industrial  opportunities  with  regard  to  their 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  55 

suitability  of  employment  for  children,  the  task  is  to  adjust  the  one 
to  the  other. 

In  the  placement  of  each  child  the  Bureau  has  been  in  close  touch 
with  the  teacher,  with  the  home,  with  the  physician  and  nurse,  and  the 
agencies  familiar  with  the  home  conditions.  This  is  necessary  in  order 
to  have  a  better  knowledge  of  the  child's  physical,  mental  and  moral 
characteristics,  so  that  he  may  be  placed  in  the  work  for  which  he  seems 
best  fitted. 

"FOLLOW  UP" 

The  obligation  does  not  end  when  the  working  certificate  has  been 
granted  and  the  child  has  been  placed  by  the  Bureau  or  has  found  his 
own  job.  In  order  to  have  a  relationship  of  mutual  satisfaction  between 
the  employer  and  the  child  it  is  necessary  to  follow  up  each  child  who 
has  left  school.  This  follow-up  work  has  meant  keeping  track  of  each 
child  at  his  work  and  bringing  him  in  touch  with  educational  centers, 
evening  schools  and  settlement  classes,  by  letters,  by  visits  to  the  home 
in  order  to  find  out  the  attitude  of  the  home  towards  the  child's  work, 
by  visits  to  the  employer,  and  by  personal  interviews  with  the  child. 
As  a  result  of  such  supervision  fewer  children  leave  their  jobs. 

One  boy  notified  the  Bureau  that  he  was  going  to  leave  his  position 
because  he  had  been  asked  to  scrub  the  office  floor  in  the  absence  of  the 
scrub-woman.  He  was  encouraged  to  stay  with  the  firm,  and  the  next 
week  his  wages  were  raised. 

A  girl  wrote  that  the  work  she  was  doing  was  too  heavy  and  she 
expected  to  leave  her  position  the  following  Saturday.  She  was  asked 
to  talk  with  her  employer  first,  and  she  was  given  work  that  was  not 
so  hard  for  a  growing  girl. 

Since  the  Bureau  was  established  three  and  a  half  years  ago,  the 
work  has  grown  and  broadened  and  has  demonstrated  its  usefulness. 
Only  one-seventh  of  the  children  who  left  school  last  year  had  access 
to  the  Bureau. 

Principals  have  asked  that  the  work  be  extended  to  their  schools; 
the  library  branches  have  asked  if  they  may  send  children  who  come 
to  the  libraries  and  who  are  not  working  to  the  nearest  school  center 
where  office  hours  are  held.  But  the  supervisors  cannot  adequately 
take  care  of  all  the  children  who  now  come  to  them. 

It  becomes  more  evident  each  day,  to  the  supervisors,  to  the  school 
and  to  the  employers,  that  the  Bureau  should  be  enlarged  to  meet  the 
many  demands.  It  is  a  work  that  not  only  gives  the  child  a  start  in 
life,  but  it  benefits  the  employer,  and  in  the  end  the  community,  by 
saving  the  health  and  character  of  the  child. 

A  TYPICAL  STORY 

Three  and  a  half  years  ago,  Stanley,  a  boy  sixteen  years  of  age, 
came  to  the  Bureau.  He  was  one  of  six  children  and  next  to  the  oldest. 
His  brother  of  nineteen  had  left  school  at  the  earliest  possible  moment — 


56  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

he  had  drifted  from  one  job  to  another  and  had  become  a  casual  laborer. 
His  father,  too,  worked  spasmodically;  he  had  never  learned  a  trade; 
he  had  not  been  taught  to  do  anything  well.  Stanley  was  working  in 
a  box  factory  carrying  boards,  and  earned  six  dollars  a  week.  He  was 
sent  to  the  Bureau  by  the  United  Charities,  who  had  been  assisting  the 
family  from  time  to  time,  to  see  if  he  could  be  placed  where  he  would 
learn  something  so  he  would  not  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  his  father 
and  his  brother.  He  had  graduated  from  the  eighth  grade  and  was 
found  to  be  very  eager  and  ambitious.  He  wanted  to  learn  the  printing 
trade.  A  place  was  found  for  him  with  a  good  printing  firm  at  an  initial 
wage  of  five  dollars  a  week.  He  has  been  in  this  shop  over  three  years, 
and  he  is  earning  fourteen  dollars  a  week. 

Two  years  and  a  half  ago  Stanley  sent  to  the  Bureau,  his  brother 
Joseph,  who  had  just  left  school  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  having  finished 
the  seventh  grade.  Joseph  was  encouraged  to  return  to  school  and 
complete  the  eighth  grade.  A  year  later  he  applied  for  work.  He,  too, 
thought  he  would  like  to  learn  the  printing  trade.  He  was  told  that 
he  could  not  be  placed  in  a  printing  shop  until  he  was  sixteen,  but  a 
temporary  position  was  found  for  him  in  an  office.  When  he  reached 
his  sixteenth  birthday  he  was  transferred  to  a  printing  shop  at  a  wage 
of  five  dollars.  He  has  been  in  this  shop  nearly  a  year  and  is  now  earning 
seven  dollars  a  week.  He  recently  reported  to  the  Bureau  that  he  had 
the  promise  of  an  increase  of  one  dollar  and  a  half  a  week  at  Christmas 
time.  He  and  his  brother  have  been  attending  the  Lane  Technical 
Evening  School  for  the  last  two  years. 

Because  these  boys  were  given  a  little  advice  and  assistance,  they 
are  not  only  learning  a  trade  and  are  happy  in  the  work  they  are  doing, 
but  they  are  able  to  support  their  family,  which  is  no  longer  a  burden 
to  the  community. 


THE  YOUNG  MEN'S  MUTUAL   IMPROVEMENT  ASSOCIATION 

MR.  B.  H.  ROBERTS 
SALT  LAKE  CITY,  UTAH 

I  ought  to  say  to  you  that  I  am  merely  a  layman  in  respect  to  this 
work  in  which  you  are  also  deeply  interested,  and  I  represent  merely 
a  layman's  movement  in  regard  to  this  work  of  vocational  guidance. 
It  occurred  to  me,  however,  that  you  might  be  interested  in  what  laymen 
were  trying  to  do  out  in  our  section  of  the  country,  and  I  am  all  the 
more  pleased  with  this  opportunity  of  presenting  to  you  some  items 
of  our  work,  because  apparently  I  happen  to  be  the  only  one  who  repre- 
sents that  great  mountain  courtry  that  Prof.  Elliff  referred  to  as  "lying 
between  the  Missouri  river  and  the  Pacific  coast,"  in  which  there  are 
some  people  worth  while  considering. 

I  represent  an  organization  having  for  its  purpose  the  intellectual, 
cultural,  moral  and  physical  guidance  of  the  youth  of  our  community, 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  57 

known  as  the  Young  Men's  Mutual  Improvement  Association.  It 
has  existed  since  1875,  and  now  numbers  between  thirty-two  thousand 
and  thirty-three  thousand,  half  of  whom  are  between  the  ages  of  12 
and  18.  The  field  of  its  activities  relate  to  prescribing  annually  a  read- 
ing course  and  directs  athletics  and  field  sports.  It  directs  contest 
work  and  music,  literature,  story  telling  and  debating.  It  directs  in 
boy  scout  work  and  has  more  than  1,000  scouts  who  are  affiliated  with 
the  National  Organization  of  the  Boy  Scouts  of  America.  The  nature 
of  its  work  may  be  judged  somewhat  by  its  manuals  in  its  senior  classes 
for  the  past  four  years.  In  1910  and  1911  the  main  subject  for  the 
advanced  class  in  this  organization  was  "The  Making  of  a  Citizen." 
In  1912-13,  "The  Individual  and  Society"  was  the  theme.  In  1913-14, 
"Man  in  Relation  to  His  Work."  In  1914-15,  "The  Vocations  of  Men." 
You  will  observe  these  last  two  titles  have  a  direct  relationship  to  vo- 
cational guidance,  and  during  the  last  two  years  we  have  taken  up  this 
work.  When  the  National  Education  Association  met  two  years  ago 
in  Salt  Lake  City,  it  gave  a  very  great  impetus  to  industrial  education 
in  our  region  of  the  country,  and  also  about  this  matter  of  vocational 
guidance,  and  consequently  our  activities  in  regard  to  seeking  to  create 
interest  chiefly  in  that  line  of  work  had  its  origin  with  the  advent  of 
the  National  Education  Association  in  our  city. 

This  organization  has  seven  hundred  associations.  These  are  grouped 
into  districts  from  six  or  eight  to  fifteen  associations.  In  a  group  with 
a  district  superintendency,  of  one  superintendent  and  two  assistants  and  a 
small  board  of  say  from  three  to  five  or  seven.  The  board  never  exceeds  the 
number  of  seven.  The  Association  organization  consists  of  a  president  and 
two  assistants,  and  a  secretary  and  class  teacher,  treasurer,  librarian, 
committees,  etc.  The  vocational  guidance  taken  up  by  this  organi- 
zation so  grew  out  of  the  movement.  The  Middle  West  like  other  sections 
of  our  country,  has  felt  the  need  of  doing  something  in  this  direction, 
and  we  have  felt  the  need  of  industrial  education  and  also  of  vocational 
guidance.  Our  high  schools,  the  State  Normal  schools  and  Agricultural 
college  have  made  some  effort — a  very  creditable  effort — to  meet  these 
requirements,  and  I  must  say  that  the  sentiment  is  very  strong  out 
in  our  region  of  the  country  for  industrial  education  for  the  reason  that 
our  pioneers  who  settled  that  country  were  men  of  strong,  practical 
common  sense,  and  encouraged  from  the  first,  industrial  education . 
And  it  was  something  of  a  maxim  with  us  that  not  only  should  the  head 
be  educated,  but  the  hand  also  should  be  made  skillful. 

Little  has  been  done,  however,  in  the  matter  of  vocational  guidance. 
It  will  likely  be  some  time  before  much  is  done  by  our  schools.  Though 
ultimately  our  schools,  elementary  and  secondary,  will  become  the  most 
efficient  agency  for  that  work,  so  you  will  understand  this  is  "primary" 
work  our  organization  is  undertaking,  and  is  sure  to  create  interest  in  the 
city  looking  toward  the  necessary  legislation  and  the  adoption  of  methods 
in  our  schools  for  carrying  on  this  work.  Our  main  purpose  is  to  agitate 
the  interest  of  establishing  such  guidance  through  our  schools.  In  the 
meantime,  however,  we  are  at  work  on  this  subject,  and  in  each  of  the 


58  NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

districts  that  I  have  described  as  being  presided  over  by  a  general  super- 
intendency  and  small  board  of  assistants,  in  each  of  these  districts  we 
have  appointed  a  vocational  director  who  has  general  supervision  of 
such  work  as  we  are  undertaking.  And  then  in  each  of  the  association 
organizations  we  have  what  we  call  a  vocational  counselor.  Of  course 
you  will  recognize  at  once  here  is  where  we  feel  our  greatest  difficulty, 
to  find  suitable  persons  to  give  the  guidance,  but  we  realize  the  truth 
of  the  old  maxim,  that  there  is  no  arrival  unless  you  start,  so  we  have 
made  the  start,  even  if  in  a  new  way;  and  to  begin  with  we  appointed 
the  president  of  our  associations  to  be  also  the  vocational  counselor  of 
the  association  until  some  suitable  person  could  be  found. 

We  followed  that  work  up  and  have  succeeded  in  putting  into  the 
association  men  in  whom  we  have  considerable  confidence  in  the  matter 
of  judgment  and  skill.  We  have  appointed  225  such  vocational  coun- 
selors, and  in  this  we  have  a  suggestion  to  make  to  this  body  for  con- 
sideration, and  that  is:  not  finding  in  every  case  professional  teachers 
to  take  up  this  work,  teachers  from  our  high  schools,  and  from  our 
grade  schools,  we  went  to  men  of  experience,  especially  to  those  men 
who  had  been  successful  in  guiding  their  own  sons  in  industrial  life, 
and  engaged  their  interest  in  the  work,  and  succeeded  in  getting  a  fine 
response  from  men  of  this  description;  and  it  is  our  observation  and 
judgment  that  we  shall  often  find  the  men  of  experience  of  this  class, 
men  who  are  very  valuable  in  the  work;  and  in  our  community  we  have 
found  a  ready  response  of  that  kind. 

In  addition  to  that  matter,  there  is  another  phase  of  this  vocational 
guidance  that  we  have  found  of  great  value  and  interest  to  us,  and 
that  is  the  coupling  in  the  minds  of  our  people  the  notion  of 
avocation  along  with  vocations.  We  are  calling  attention  to  the  fact 
that  no  man  ought  to  be  content  with  just  the  narrow  life  that  would 
accompany  a  close  adherence  to  merely  the  vocation  by  which  he  obtains 
his  livelihood,  and  we  give  encouragement  to  men  to  couple  with  their 
vocations  some  avocation,  cultural  in  its  character,  or  perhaps  of  financial 
benefit,  or  of  community  service;  and  here  we  think  we  shall  find  perhaps 
a  permanent  field  for  activity  for  these  associations  of  ours  because 
there  will  always  be  in  every  community  a  large  number  of  people  who 
are  so  full  of  contempt  of  tools  and  to  the  trades  and  to  such  narrow 
occupations,  that  unless  there  is  something  to  relieve  the  burden  of  such 
a  life,  the  life  isn't  going  to  be  as  full  and  rich  as  certainly  it  ought  to  be. 
We  recognize  the  truth  of  a  statement  that  is  credited  to  Demosthenes, 
wherein  he  said  he  could  never  believe  that  your  spirit  is  generous  and 
noble,  while  you  are  engaged  in  fighting. 

Now  then,  from  that  principle  we  arrive  at  this  conclusion.  There 
is  certainly  absolute  necessity  for  ennobling  in  some  way  the  lives  of 
those  who  are  contemptous  to  the  career  of  the  laborer  and  perhaps 
even  of  the  trade.  The  architect  who  carries  in  his  mind  the  splendid 
vision  of  the  structure  he  is  making,  of  course  has  this  ennobling  influence 
in  his  life.  His  vision  of  beauty 'and  glory,  combined  in  the  structure 
he  is  rearing  is  certainly  great  in  its  character,  but  the  fellow  condemned 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION  59 

to  the  laying  of  bricks  in  a  wall  has  no  such  vision  to  ennoble  his  life. 
The  thing  is  to  furnish  something  that  will  put  sweetness  and  strength 
and  breadth  into  the  life  of  the  common  laborer;  so  in  pursuance  of 
that  ideal  we  are  urging  the  adoption  among  our  laboring  people  of 
the  pursuit  of  some  avocation  in  connection  with  their  vocation,  and 
we  think  in  that  direction  we  shall  perhaps  find  great  work  for  our  organ- 
ization. I  thank  you  for  this  hearing. 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  VOCATIONAL  SCHOLARSHIP 
COMMITTEE 

MARGARET  BROWN 
SECRETARY  HENRY  STREET  SETTLEMENT,  NEW  YORK  CITY 

The  Committee  for  Vocational  Scholarships  was  organized  at  the 
Henry  Street  Settlement  in  the  Spring  of  1908  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
two  years  of  vocational  or  trade  training  to  children  whose  parents 
could  not  afford  to  keep  them  in  school  after  the  time  when  they  might 
legally  go  to  work.  From  actual  personal  knowledge  of  large  numbers 
of  individual  children,  corroborated  by  the  investigation  made  for  the 
Settlement  by  Miss  Mary  Flexner,  of  one  thousand  children,  it  was 
realized  that  the  child  who  goes  to  work  at  14  years  of  age,  in  most 
instances,  enters  a  blind  alley  job.  To  merely  advise  the  children  of 
very  poor  parents  to  remain  in  school  for  vocational  training  after  the 
14th  birthday  is  of  little  avail,  and  so  the  plan  of  scholarships  was  devised. 

As  a  result  of  Miss  Flexner's  investigation  and  the  personal  obser- 
vations referred  to,  the  Vocational  Scholarship  Committee  was  formed. 
It  decided  to  award  scholarships  of  $3  a  week  or  $150  a  year,  for  two 
years  of  definite  vocational  training  in  such  instances  where  the  family 
could  not  afford  to  give  the  child  such  training,  and  where  it  is  dependent 
upon  the  small  weekly  wage  earned  by  the  child  to  augment  its  income. 

As  the  Scholarship  Fund  is  limited,  the  policy  of  the  Committee 
when  awarding  scholarships,  is  to  put  the  emphasis  on  the  exceptionally 
talented  child,  the  physical  immature  child,  or  the  oldest  child  in  the 
family,  who  if  skilled,  will  raise  the  standard  of  efficiency  of  the  other 
members.  In  deciding  upon  the  scholarship  application,  the  committee 
usually  favors  the  child  of  the  widowed  mother,  or  the  physically  handi- 
capped father.  It  is  in  these  homes  that  the  economic  pressure  is  the 
greatest. 

Applications  for  scholarships  come  from  all  parts  of  the  city,  and 
through  every  channel,  from  school  teachers,  school  visitors,  charitable 
agencies,  district  nurses  and  the  settlements.  The  method  of  selecting 
the  applications  is  as  follows: 

The  secretary  visits  each  scholarship  applicant  in  the  home.  The 
conditions  are  carefully  noted;  when  necessary,  other  agencies  are 
consulted  who  may  have  come  in  contact  with  the  family,  and  thus  a 
complete  social  history  of  the  home  is  obtained.  The  secretary  then 


60  NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 

visits  the  school  which  the  child  is  attending  and  talks  over  with  his 
teachers  his  aptitudes,  interests  and  ability.  Most  important  of  all 
is  the  evidence  given  by  the  applicant  himself  from  a  sympathetic  talk 
with  him.  After  ascertaining  all  the  knowledge  possible  on  such  brief 
acquaintance,  the  facts  are  presented  to  the  committee  at  its  monthly 
meeting. 

Every  application  is  painstakingly  examined,  and  from  the  many 
presented  a  selection  is  made  of  a  few  children  for  whom  there  are  avail- 
able scholarships.  From  the  facts  presented  by  the  secretary  the  com- 
mittee is  able  to  advise  which  trade  or  vocational  school  gives  promise 
of  being  the  most  suitable  for  the  individual.  The  children  have  been 
sent  to  almost  every  available  vocational  school  in  the  city  which  meets 
our  needs. 

The  girls  are  learning  dressmaking,  millinery,  hand-embroidery, 
sample  mounting,  box  making,  costume  designing  and  illustrating,  and 
several  are  taking  commercial  courses  and  mechanics.  A  few  children 
are  kept  in  the  public  elementary  schools  until  they  graduate  before 
being  sent  to  a  trade  school. 

Each  child  who  is  receiving  a  scholarship,  comes  to  the  Settlement 
once  a  week  for  a  personal  interview  with  the  Secretary.  Together 
they  talk  over  the  week's  work  in  school,  the  studies  which  are  particularly 
difficult  and  those  that  are  enjoyed  the  most.  Often  the  child  is  invited 
to  come  to  the  Settlement  study  room  because  the  home  is  too  noisy 
for  concentrated  work.  The  scholar's  physical  condition  is  carefully 
watched,  and  if  necessary  he  is  taken  to  the  dispensary  to  have  his 
eyes  examined  or  perhaps  his  teeth  filled.  Provision  is  made  for  the 
child's  social  life  in  a  Settlement  club  whenever  possible.  Frequent 
visits  to  the  home  and  school  are  necessary  to  insure  proper  supervision, 
for  it  must  be  remembered  that  these  boys  and  girls  come  from  homes 
where  the  financial  pressure  is  constant  and  reacts  upon  the  child's 
school  work.  He  sometimes  becomes  discouraged '  and  is  occasionally 
tempted  to  leave  school  for  a  temporary  financial  advantage. 

Records  are  carefully  kept  of  the  seventy-five  children  who  have 
finished  their  training  and  gone  to  work.  The  comparison  of  their 
wages  with  those  of  fifty-one  children  of  the  same  age  taken  from  the 
records  of  the  Alliance  Employment  Bureau  in  the  city,  is  a  most  interest- 
ing one,  and  proves  conclusively,  at  least  for  this  small  number,  that 
the  children  who  have  had  two  years  of  training  are  able  to  earn  a  much 
higher  wage  than  those  who  go  to  work  without  previous  training.  The 
average  wage  of  the  untrained  children  who  have  been  working  six 
months  is  $4.30  a  week,  and  that  of  the  trained  children  is  $6.85.  Of 
the  children  working  one  year  the  average  wage  of  those  untrained  is 
$5.10,  that  of  the  trained  children  is  $9.50.  Of  the  children  working 
two  years  the  average  wage  of  the  untrained  children  is  $5.85,  that  of 
the  trained  children  $10.24. 


NATIONAL   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE   ASSOCIATION  61 

The  first  year  the  committee  gave  one  scholarship.  This  number 
was  gradually  increased  until  in  the  present  year  the  Committee  is 
granting  one  hundred  scholarships,  and  a  total  number  of  one  hundred 
and  seventy-five  scholarships  have  been  awarded  during  the  six  years. 
Seventy-five  of  this  number  are  now  working.  Eleven  have  continued 
in  school  without  the  scholarship  after  the  first  year  because  their  families 
in  the  meantime  have  become  somewhat  more  prosperous  and  could 
themselves  afford  to  keep  the  child  in  school. 


CONSTITUTION 

OF    THE 

NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE    ASSOCIATION 


ARTICLE  I 

NAME 

The  name  of  the  organization  shall  be  the  National  Vocational  Guid- 
ance Association. 

ARTICLE  II 

PURPOSES 

The  necessity  under  pur  modern  complex  conditions  of  leading  the 
child  to  discover  his  possibilities  and  of  affording  him  opportunities  for 
exercising  them  in  those  industries  or  professions  in  which  his  capacities 
may  find  the  fullest  and  most  effective  expression  leads  to  the  formation  of 
this  Association.  Its  object  shall  be  to  engage  every  agency  that  has  to 
do  with  the  education  or  employment  of  young  people  in  a  cooperative 
attempt  to  realize  this  purpose. 

This  Association  will  attempt  to  give  a  stronger  and  more  general 
impulse  and  more  systematic  direction  to  the  study  and  pratice  of  Voca- 
tional Guidance  than  has  heretofore  been  given;  to  establish  a  center  or 
centers  for  the  distribution  of  information  concerning  the  study  and 
practice  of  Vocational  Guidance;  and  to  enlist  the  public  schools  in  the 
practice  of  Vocational  Guidance  as  a  part  of  the  task  of  education. 

ARTICLE  III 

MEMBERSHIP 

Any  person  or  organization  interested  in  the  subject  of  Vocational 
Guidance  shall  be  eligible  to  membership  on  the  payment  of  annual  dues. 

There  shall  be  two  classes  of  members. 

ACTIVE  MEMBERS: — All  those  who  pay  annual  dues  of  $1.00. 

SUSTAINING  MEMBERS: — All  those  who  pay  annual  dues  of  $5.00. 

Each  member  will  be  entitled  to  a  copy  of  all  the  publications  of 
the  Association  issued  during  his  or  her  membership. 

ARTICLE  IV 

OFFICERS 

The  officers  of  the  Society  shall  be  a  President,  a  Vice  President,  a 
Secretary,  a  Treasurer,  and  an  Executive  Council  consisting  of  the  above 
officers  and  five  members. 

THE  PRESIDENT  shall  preside  at  all  the  meetings  of  the  Association 
and  of  the  Executive  Council  and  shall  perform  the  duties  usually  devolv- 
ing upon  a  presiding  officer.  In  the  absence  of  the  President,  the  Vice 
President  shall  preside  and  fulfill  the  duties  of  President. 

THE  SECRETARY  shall  keep  a  full  and  accurate  report  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  general  meetings  of  the  Association  and  of  the  Executive 
Council,  and  shall  conduct  all  necessary  correspondence. 


NATIONAL    VOCATIONAL    GUlD'ANCE    ASSOCIATION^  ]  •'  *  '    63 

THE  TREASURER  shall  receive,  and  under  the  direction  of  the  Execu- 
tive Council,  hold  in  safe-keeping,  all  money  paid  to  the  Association, 
and  shall  expend  the  same  only  upon  the  order  of  the  Council;  shall 
keep  an  exact  account  of  his  receipts  and  expenditures,  which  account 
he  shall  render  to  the  Executive  Council  when  requested. 

ELECTIONS 

The  President,  Vice  President,  Secretary  and  Treasurer,  shall  be 
elected  by  ballot  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Association  by  a  majority 
of  those  present.  At  the  meeting  of  1914  the  members  of  the  Executive 
Council  shall  be  elected  for  one  year,  for  1915  they  shall  be  elected  for 
one,  two,  three,  four  and  five  years  respectively;  at  each  succeeding 
annual  meeting  one  member  shall  be  elected  to  serve  five  years.  Elec- 
tion shall  be  by  ballot. 

DUTIES    OF    EXECUTIVE    COUNCIL 

It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  Executive  Council  to  provide  for  the 
investment  of  all  funds  of  the  Association;  to  issue  orders  on  the  Treas- 
urer for  the  payment  of  all  bills  incurred  by  the  Association,  and  to  con- 
duct such  other  business  as  may  be  delegated  to  it  by  the  Association, 
and  to  report  to  that  body  when  requested.  The  Executive  Council 
shall  appoint  such  standing  and  special  committees  as  provided  for. 

ARTICLE  V 

MEETINGS 

The  annual  meeting  shall  be  held  at  such  time  and  place  as  the 
Executive  Council  shall  decide. 

ARTICLE  VI 

COMMITTEES 

There  shall  be  a  Membership  Committee,  a  Nominating  Committee 
and  such  other  committees  as  the  Association  may  deem  necessary. 

ARTICLE  VII 

AMENDMENTS 

This  Constitution  may  be  amended  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  all  mem- 
bers of  the  Association  present  at  any  annual  meeting,  notice  of  such  amend- 
ment having  been  given  at  the  previous  annual  meeting  or  the  proposed  amend- 
ment having  received  the  approval  of  the  Executive  Council. 


Index 


PAGE 

Bloomfield,  Meyer 4 

Brown,  Margaret 59 

Chicago  Vocational  Bureau  51, ff 

Claxton,  Philander  P 44 

College  Freshmen,  Classes 

of- 13 

Constitution.... 62 

Counselors 21 

Curriculum  and  Vocational 

Guidance 29,ff 

Davis,  Anne  S 4,  51 

Davis,  Jesse  B 4 

Davis,  Philip._ 8 

Dexterity  and  Skill 10 

Dunn,  Arthur  W 4 

Dyer,  Franklin  B 4 

Education,  Aim  of 14 

Elliff,  J.  D 12 

Failures,  Causes  of 13 

Follow-up  Work 55 

Girls'    Trade    Educational 

League 21 

Hedges,  Anna  C 10 

Henry   Street   Settlement, 

N.  Y 59 

Hiatt,  James  S 4 

Hill,  David  Spence 36 

Home  and  School 23 

Joint    Committee    for  Vo- 
cational Supervision 51 

Lathrop,  Julia  C 49 

Leavitt,  Frank  M 4,  5 

Mechanical    Engineer, 

Lesson  on 26 

Officers,  1915 4 

Panama-PacificConference       4 

Parents,  Letter  to 53 

Part-time  Secondary  School- 
ing-   44 

Placement 54 

Placement  Bureau  of  Bos- 
ton...   21 

President's  Address....  5 


PAGE 
Problems     of     Vocational 

Guidance  in  the  South..  36,ff 
Professions,  Training  for....  12 
v  Program,  Vocational  Guid- 
ance, some  items  in 49 

Prosser,  C.  A 4 

Psychological  Tests 19 

Richmond  Meeting 4 

Roberts,  Mr.  B.  H 56 

Ryan,  Jr.,  W.  Carson 4 

Self-analysis,  Aids  in 15 

Street  and  the  Start  in  Life       8 

Street  Survey,  Need  of 9 

Teachers    and    Vocational 

Guidance 22 

Thompson,  Frank  V 17 

Vocational  Assistants — .  20 

Vocational  Guidance: 

a  school  function 6 

¥  practical  phases  of 8,ff 

,  principles  underlying 11 

function  of  University....  12 

\  problem  of 14 

plan  for  University. 16 

\  in  public  schools 17,ff 

\    in  Boston 17 

»  relation  to  continuation 

schools 21 

and  teachers 22 

and  the  curriculum.. 29,ff 

and  social  welfare 36,ff 

and  part-time  secondary 

schooling 44,ff 

Course  in 24 

Vocational     Scholarship 

Committee 59 

Vocational  Vision 15 

Wheatley,  William  A 24 

Wile,  Ira  S.,  M.  D 29 

Working  Certificate 21,53f 

Young  Men's  Mutual  Im- 
provement Association...  56,ff 


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